They shrieked all with one
rotund mad laughter as Tom Poppins capered over and bought for
seven cents a pink bisque doll, which he pinned to the lapel of
his plaid overcoat. They drank hot chocolate at the Olympic
Confectionery Store, pretending to each other that they were
shivering with cold.
It was here that Nelly reached up and patted Mr. Wrenn's
pale-blue tie into better lines. In her hair was the scent
which he had come to identify as hers. Her white furs brushed
against his overcoat.
The cigar-makers, with seven of them in full evening-dress and
two in dinner-coats, were already dancing on the waxy floor of
Melpomene Hall when they arrived. A full orchestra was pounding
and scraping itself into an hysteria of merriment on the
platform under the red stucco-fronted balcony, and at the bar
behind the balcony there was a spirit of beer and revelry by night.
Mr. Wrenn embarrassedly passed large groups of pretty girls.
He felt very light and insecure in his new gun-metal-finish
pumps now that he had taken off his rubbers and essayed the
slippery floor.
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