"Now," continued Peter easily, "may I ask why you gentlemen prefer to lounge away your leisure hours in a room which is chiefly furnished, as far as I can see, with scrubbing brushes.
And when the human race has progressed to the stage where seventeen thousand chairs are manufactured on every day except Sunday --" he paused.
Rose and Key regarded him vacantly.
"Will you tell me," went on Peter, "why you choose to rest yourselves on articles intended for the transportation of water from one place to another?"
At this point Rose contributed a grunt to the conversation.
"And lastly," finished Peter, "will you tell me why, when you are in a building beautifully hung with enormous candelabra, you prefer to spend these evening hours under one anemic electric light?"
Rose looked at Key; Key looked at Rose.
They laughed; they laughed uproariously; they found it was impossible to look at each other without laughing.
But they were not laughing with this man --they were laughing at him.
To them a man who talked after this fashion was either raving drunk or raving crazy.
"You are Yale men, I presume," said Peter, finishing his highball and preparing another. They laughed again.
"Na-ah."
"So?
I thought perhaps you might be members of that lowly section of the university known as the Sheffield Scientific School."
"Na-ah."
"Hm.
Well, that's too bad.
No doubt you are Harvard men, anxious to preserve your incognito in this --this paradise of violet blue, as the newspapers say."
"Na-ah," said Key scornfully, "we was just waitin' for somebody."
"Ah," exclaimed Peter, rising and filling their glasses,
"very interestin'.
Had a date with a scrub lady, eh?"
They both denied this indignantly.
"It's all right," Peter reassured them, "don't apologize.
A scrub lady's as good as any lady in the world.
Kipling says `Any lady and Judy O'Grady under the skin.'"
"Sure," said Key, winking broadly at Rose.
"My case, for instance," continued Peter, finishing his glass.
"I got a girl up here that's spoiled.
Spoildest darn girl I ever saw.
Refused to kiss me; no reason whatsoever.
Led me on deliberately to think sure I want to kiss you and then plunk!
Threw me over!
What's the younger generation comin' to?"
"Say tha's hard luck," said Key --"that's awful hard luck."
"Oh, boy!" said Rose.
"Have another?" said Peter.
"We got in a sort of fight for a while," said Key after a pause, "but it was too far away."
"A fight? --tha's stuff!" said Peter, seating himself unsteadily.
"Fight 'em all!
I was in the army."
"This was with a Bolshevik fella."
"Tha's stuff!" exclaimed Peter, enthusiastic.
"That's what I say!
Kill the Bolshevik!
Exterminate 'em!"
"We're Americuns," said Rose, implying a sturdy, defiant patriotism.
"Sure," said Peter.
"Greatest race in the world!
We're all Americuns!