Page:Tales of the Jazz Age.djvu/27

 The Jelly-bean stopped in a store and bought a collar. Then he sauntered along toward Soda Sam's, where he found the usual three or four cars of a summer evening parked in front and the little darkies running back and forth with sundaes and lemonades.

"Hello, Jim."

It was a voice at his elbow&mdash;Joe Ewing sitting in an automobile with Marylyn Wade. Nancy Lamar and a strange man were in the back seat.

The Jelly-bean tipped his hat quickly.

"Hi Ben&mdash;" then, after an almost imperceptible pause&mdash;"How y' all?"

Passing, he ambled on toward the garage where he had a room up-stairs. His "How y'all" had been said to Nancy Lamar, to whom he had not spoken in fifteen years.

Nancy had a mouth like a remembered kiss and shadowy eyes and blue-black hair inherited from her mother who had been born in Budapest. Jim passed her often on the street, walking small-boy fashion with her hands in her pockets and he knew that with her inseparable Sally Carrol Hopper she had left a trail of broken hearts from Atlanta to New Orleans.

For a few fleeting moments Jim wished he could dance. Then he laughed and as he reached his door began to sing softly to himself:


 * "Her Jelly Roll can twist your soul,
 * Her eyes are big and brown,
 * She's the Queen of the Queens of the Jelly-beans&mdash;
 * My Jeanne of Jelly-bean Town."

At nine-thirty, Jim and Clark met in front of Soda Sam's and started for the Country Club in Clark's Ford.