"That's all right, old thing," Summertown reassured her. "We're all married—more or less—and we're only young once. Waitero! Uno chairo immediato damquick, what what! Well, lads, this is the 'Coq d'Or.' What about it?"
"It is an impressive scene," I replied.
The room was half empty when we arrived, but filled rapidly during the next hour. I observed Sir Adolf Erckmann presiding over a large party and saw numerous rather elderly young men whose lined faces and watchful eyes were familiar to me from music-hall promenades. A handful of professionals executed the Tango and Maxixe with much of the suggestiveness of which those dances are capable, but it was only when the twanging banjos changed to rag-time that the majority of our neighbours sheepishly unbent and put forth an assumption of joie de vivre.
"This is It," cried Summertown, jumping up excitedly with arched back and hunched shoulders. "Come on, Billy!"
In a moment they were locked in each other's arms, swaying slowly and shuffling down the length of the blazing gold and white room. The Creole proposed that she and Alan should follow Summertown's example, and, when he excused himself, made successful overtures to the other Round House lady whom we had been privileged to entertain.
"The metropolis is waking up," commented Alan as he watched the scene.
Elderly women were being navigated by anxious young men, elderly men pranced conscientiously with shrill young girls, whom they seemed to envelop in waves of shirt front and human flesh. Three rather intoxicated boys, with their hats on, gravely linked hands and circled unsteadily to a hiccoughed refrain of 'Nuts in May'; girls danced with girls, and a thin, long-haired man performed a pas seul with the aid of a banjo purloined from a member of the orchestra who had withdrawn in search of refreshment.
"There's been rather a boom in night-clubs lately," I explained. "People were tired of being turned out of the restaurants at half-past twelve."
"Do ladies come here?"
"You see them," I said.