"Wait," May called. She turned to Carl. "I'll take another," she said, "if you'll promise not to call me a tank again."
"I'll promise nothing," said Carl. "I don't care if you don't take another."
"All right then. I'll have another for spite."
The waiter smiled and went away.
Mal Gobel's Joy Boys were at it again. They were playing the reckless, lovable song from the season's hit show, Charlot's Revue.
Something magnificent and breathless about the lyric. A realness, a beauty. No song ever written sets its period more deftly. The lunch-room with its yellow lights, its white-aproned waiter, its marble table tops. The city outside, the newsboys shouting the morning papers at midnight, the honking taxi horns. The boy and girl smiling serenely and happily into each other's eyes across their orders of fried egg sandwiches and coffee.
"Want to dance?" Carl asked May.
She answered him by standing up and holding her arms awkwardly toward him. They glided out upon the vacant floor. Hubert and Lillian watched them for a while, then turned to each other.
"I don't dance," he confessed.
