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disappeared behind a red leather door marked OFFICE.
    “I don’t know but what you’re right,” she said. “She would give a good account of herself in Buckingham Palace or in a barroom brawl.”
    The waiter placed large steins of beer on the table. “Compliments of the house.”
    Mrs. Feeley hoisted hers.
     
    “Drink, boys, drink!
    Drownd all sorrow!
    Git drunk today!
    Sober tomorrow!”
     
    “G’luck!” The captain set his mug down empty. “One little matter before we settle down to the serious business of the evenin’…” He laid three twenty-dollar bills on the table. “My expenses was next to nothin’. I’m beholden to you. Is this square?”
    Mrs. Feeley looked at Mrs. Rasmussen’s stricken face. Miss Tinkham retreated into glacial aloofness.
    “I can raise it,” he said.
    “Do you think we done it for money?” Mrs. Feeley said.
    The slow red crept into Elisha Dowdy’s face and he picked up the money.
    “Save it for Chartreuse.” Mrs. Rasmussen’s voice was the thin dry scrape of an empty pen.
    “I didn’t go to insult you,” Captain Dowdy said.
    “With your experience of women,” Miss Tinkham said, “it is hard for you to believe that there are people alive who believe that love is the supreme duty and good.”
    “But you gotta live, same as me…or her, for that matter.”
    “We’re livin’, ain’t we?” Mrs. Feeley said. “An’ eatin’ pretty high up on the hog, if you ask me! Sailin’ round the bay on a yacht in the daytime! Classy joint like this at night!”
    “But you scarcely know me.”
    “I may be a stranger to you, but you ain’t no stranger to me,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.
    “I don’t get it.”
    “Don’t be stuffy!” Miss Tinkham said. “You know
    very well that some people can bridge the gap of a lifetime in thirty minutes.”
    “Maybe you’re right, I’m sorry about the money. I was hopin’ you could work along with me.”
    “Any time, boy, any time!” Mrs. Feeley slapped him on the back. “The reason she was weepy was ’cause she was bettin’ her kidneys against the brewery. C’mon!” Mrs. Feeley dragged Mrs. Rasmussen off to the ladies’ room to repair her damaged face.
    “I can’t figure you women out,” the captain said. “A fellah can say anythin’ he’s a mind to around you an’ you never bat an eye. Mrs. Feeley comes out with some ah…thumpahs now an’ then.”
    “Wait till you know her better,” Miss Tinkham laughed.
    “Anybody can see you’re a refined woman, somethin’ kinda im-physical in your face, an’ still rough sailor’s talk don’t upset you.”
    “It’s part of life. Swearing is the seamy side of prayer,” Miss Tinkham said. “Realism and truth we must have. Honesty, purity and nudity. Dear me! The beer’s getting to me, too!”
    “Chartreuse, now…You wanta hear somethin’ funny? She thinks the Bible’s vulgar!”
    “She probably thinks Shakespeare is, too. She has never heard,” Miss Tinkham said, “that vulgarity, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. I am sure that your wife’s dressing table does not lack mirrors.”
    “Velma’s real nice,” Mrs. Rasmussen said when she came back.
    “The cook’s making Chinese fried shrimp for us,” Velma said. “Nothing much doing tonight.”
    “Nothing much doing?” Miss Tinkham looked about the crowded bar.
    “No trouble or fights.”
    “I thought you meant holy Joes at a convention,” Mrs. Feeley said, “a ten-dollar bill in one hand and the Ten Commandments in the other an’ ain’t about to break either one of ’em.”
    The captain lifted his glass:
    “Down the gulch.”
    “Oooh,” Mrs. Feeley squealed blissfully as the lights went down and the rain on the tin roof started again. “Ain’t it lovely an’ shivery?”
    Tooner Schooner sat back and put an arm around a pair of women on either side of him.
    “What’s a fellah gonna do, ennahow, with four dolls?”
    “Cheer up!” Mrs. Feeley banged him on the back. “Plenty