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which made the entrance formal and a little cluttered. Mack and the boys loved the Palace and they even cleaned it a little sometimes. In their minds they sneered at unsettled people who had no house to go to and occasionally in their pride they brought a guest home for a day or two.
    Eddie was understudy bartender at La Ida. He filled in when Whitey the regular bartender was sick, which was as often as Whitey could get away with it. Every time Eddie filled in, a few bottles disappeared, so he couldn’t fill in too often. But Whitey liked to have Eddie take his place because he was convinced, and correctly, that Eddie was one man who wouldn’t try to keep his job permanently. Almost anyone could have trusted Eddie to this extent. Eddie didn’t have to remove much liquor. He kept a gallon jug under the bar and in the mouth of the jug there was a funnel. Anything left in the glasses Eddie poured into the funnel before he washed the glasses. If an argument or a song were going on at La Ida, or late at night when good fellowship had reached its logical conclusion, Eddie poured glasses half or two-thirds full into the funnel. The resulting punch which he took back to the Palace was always interesting and sometimes surprising. The mixture of rye, beer, bourbon, scotch, wine, rum and gin was fairly constant, but now and then some effete customer would order a stinger or an anisette or a curaçao and these little touches gave a distinct character to the punch. It was Eddie’s habit always to shake a little angostura into the jug just before he left. On a good night Eddie got three-quarters of a gallon. It was a source of satisfaction to him that nobody was out anything. He had observed that a man got just as drunk on half a glass as on a whole one, that is, if he was in the mood to get drunk at all.
    Eddie was a very desirable inhabitant of the Palace Flophouse. The others never asked him to help with the housecleaning and once Hazel washed four pairs of Eddie’s socks.
    Now on the afternoon when Hazel was out collecting with Doc in the Great Tide Pool, the boys were sitting around in the Palace sipping the result of Eddie’s latest contribution. Gay was there too, the latest member of the group. Eddie sipped speculatively from his glass and smacked his lips. “It’s funny how you get a run,” he said. “Take last night. There was at least ten guys ordered Manhattans. Sometimes maybe you don’t get two calls for a Manhattan in a month. It’s the grenadine gives the stuff that taste.”
    Mack tasted his—a big taste—and refilled his glass. “Yes,” he said somberly, “it’s little things make the difference. ” He looked about to see how this gem had set with the others.
    Only Gay got the full impact. “Sure is,” he said. “Does—”
    “Where’s Hazel today?” Mack asked.
    Jones said, “Hazel went out with Doc to get some starfish.”
    Mack nodded his head soberly. “That Doc is a hell of a nice fella,” he said. “He’ll give you a quarter any time. When I cut myself he put on a new bandage every day. A hell of a nice fella.”
    The others nodded in profound agreement.
    “I been wondering for a long time,” Mack continued, “what we could do for him—something nice. Something he’d like.”
    “He’d like a dame,” said Hughie.
    “He’s got three four dames,” said Jones. “You can always tell—when he pulls them front curtains closed and when he plays that kind of church music on the phonograph.”
    Mack said reprovingly to Hughie, “Just because he doesn’t run no dame naked through the streets in the daytime, you think Doc’s celebrate.”
    “What’s celebrate?” Eddie asked.
    “That’s when you can’t get no dame,” said Mack.
    “I thought it was a kind of a party,” said Jones.
    A silence fell on the room. Mack shifted in his chaise longue. Hughie let the front legs of his chair down on the floor. They looked into space and then they all looked at Mack. Mack said,