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184 "You got great friends," he said. "I like you, Joe." He slipped a ten-dollar bill in the Italian's hand.

"Ill stay with you, Mr. Gracey, to help you to bed," Joe said.

"I c'n take care of myself. Where's Frankie?"

"He's gone to bed."

"Sensible Frankie," Ken said. "I'll go to bed." He closed the door on Joe. It had been a grand party. How the dirt had splashed! What joy to be untrammelled, to do what you please and to say whatever pops on your tongue!

Ken swayed before the mantel mirror. His hair was rumpled where Frankie had curled it in skewers when, draped in a checkered table cloth borrowed from the hotel dining room, he did the Samanthy Jane bit.

What a party-hound Joe was! You'd never know he was that clever; dull, colorless Joe, who sat in a corner, watched the guests arrive, prepared drinks, offered suitable suggestions, stunts and otherwise made himself useful. Ken decided to engage him as a dresser at once. He liked that Joe, the old tart.

As for the others: Georgie-Porgie Keene, the handsome blond youth from Pittsburgh who graced the party with his baritone solos and who suddenly got drunk enough to sing the famous "Bucket of Violets," a song Ken had never heard before, a racy Rabelaisian chantey which made everyone rock with laughter.

Georgie, so they whispered, was "profesh," and then only when he was well paid. He was handsome, firmly-built, a boy who was good looking enough to be in the movies, Ken thought, instead of the road troupe of "Sweeter than Sweet."

Inkie Ward was the tall, lean youth whose rapier-like