What were you saying?”

“Why, Father Knickerbocker,” I began, but he interrupted me again.

“My dear fellow,” he said. “May I ask you not to call me Father Knickerbocker?”

“But I thought you were so old,” I said humbly.

“Old! Me old! Oh, I don’t know. Why, dash it, there are plenty of men as old as I am dancing the tango here every night. Pray call me, if you don’t mind, just Knickerbocker, or simply Knicky—most of the other boys call me Knicky. Now what’s it to be?”

“Most of all,” I said, “I should like to go to some quiet place and have a talk about the old days.”

“Right,” he said. “We’re going to just the place now—nice quiet dinner, a good quiet orchestra, Hawaiian, but quiet, and lots of women.” Here he smacked his lips again, and nudged me with his elbow. “Lots of women, bunches of them. Do you like women?”

“Why, Mr. Knickerbocker,” I said hesitatingly, “I suppose—I—”

The old man sniggered as he poked me again in the ribs.

“You bet you do, you dog!” he chuckled. “We all do. For me, I confess it, sir, I can’t sit down to dinner without plenty of women, stacks of them, all round me.”

Meantime the taxi had stopped. I was about to open the door and get out.

“Wait, wait,” said Father Knickerbocker, his hand upon my arm, as he looked out of the window. “I’ll see somebody in a minute who’ll let us out for fifty cents. None of us here ever gets in or out of anything by ourselves. It’s bad form. Ah, here he is!”

A moment later we had passed through the portals of a great restaurant, and found ourselves surrounded with all the colour and tumult of a New York dinner à la mode. A burst of wild music, pounded and thrummed out on ukuleles by a group of yellow men in Hawaiian costume, filled the room, helping to drown or perhaps only serving to accentuate the babel of talk and the clatter of dishes that arose on every side. Men in evening dress and women in all the colours of the rainbow, décolleté to a degree, were seated at little tables, blowing blue smoke into the air, and drinking green and yellow drinks from glasses with thin stems. A troupe of cabaret performers shouted and leaped on a little stage at the side of the room, unheeded by the crowd.

“Ha ha!” said Knickerbocker, as we drew in our chairs to a table. “Some place, eh? There’s a peach! Look at her! Or do you like better that lazy-looking brunette next to her?”

Mr. Knickerbocker was staring about the room, gazing at the women with open effrontery, and a senile leer upon his face. I felt ashamed of him. Yet, oddly enough, no one about us seemed in the least disturbed.

“Now, what cocktail will you have?” said my companion. “There’s a new one this week, the Fantan, fifty cents each, will you have that? Right? Two Fantans. Now to eat—what would you like?”

“May I have a slice of cold beef and a pint of ale?”

“Beef!” said Knickerbocker contemptuously. “My dear fellow, you can’t have that. Beef is only fifty cents. Do take something reasonable. Try Lobster Newburg, or no, here’s a more expensive thing—Filet Bourbon a la something. I don’t know what it is, but by gad, sir, it’s three dollars a portion anyway.”

“All right,” I said.