Page:Claire Ambler (1928).djvu/216

 handled sweetly and hygienically with deferential white gloves.

This is not to say that the deference was anything more than a hopeful sale of so much manner for proportionate pourboire. The giant beetle at the awning of the Abercrombie Apartments on Park Avenue had in his heart no true deference for the larvae deposited with him, though they were among the most richly and softly wrapped in all that thoroughfare. "Tea!" he said mockingly to an official friend, who paused beside him in a relaxed interval. "They call it 'tea'! If you'd see 'em comin' away from all these 'teas,' about an hour or so from now, you'd like to get hold of a little of that kind of 'tea' yourself, Charlie."

The policeman laughed admiringly. "Cost about eight dollars a quart from a bootlegger, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, and more. It's a shame," the doorman said bitterly. "You'd be surprised how much of it they get away with. Yes, and even young girls! It's the worst waste we've ever had in this country. Now before prohibition" But here he interrupted himself; a French automobile drew out of the traffic to halt by the awning; he stepped forward cordially and opened the door. "Yes'm," he said, not replying to any inquiry. "It's a nasty afternoon. Very nasty, in-