Even by gaslight the diversions are melancholy i' the mouth--drink
and rag-time, and an occasional surprise when the waiter swabs the suds
from under your sticky glass. There is an answer. Transmigration! The
soul of Sir Walter Raleigh has traveled from beneath his slashed doublet
to a kindred home under Rooney's visible plaid waistcoat. Rooney's is
twenty years ahead of the times. Rooney has removed the embargo. Rooney
has spread his cloak upon the soggy crossing of public opinion, and any
Elizabeth who treads upon it is as much a queen as another. Attend to
the revelation of the secret. In Rooney's ladies may smoke!
McManus sat down at a vacant table. He paid for the glass of beer
that he ordered, tilted his narrow-brimmed derby to the back of his
brick-dust head, twined his feet among the rungs of his chair, and
heaved a sigh of contentment from the breathing spaces of his innermost
soul; for this mud honey was clarified sweetness to his taste. The sham
gaiety, the hectic glow of counterfeit hospitality, the self-conscious,
joyless laughter, the wine-born warmth, the loud music retrieving the
hour from frequent whiles of awful and corroding silence, the presence
of well-clothed and frank-eyed beneficiaries of Rooney's removal of the
restrictions laid upon the weed, the familiar blended odors of soaked
lemon peel, flat beer, and _peau d'Espagne_--all these were manna to
Cork McManus, hungry for his week in the desert of the Capulet's high
rear room.
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