It stuck to them all the evening; when a girl passed them on Kearney Street and Geary cried out at her that "Cherries were ripe!" it threw them all into spasms of laughter.
They went first to the Palace Garden near the Tivoli Theatre, where Geary and Vandover had beer and Ellis a whisky cocktail.

The performance was just finishing, and they voted that they were not at all amused at a lean, overworked girl whom they saw performing a song and dance through a blue haze of tobacco smoke; so they all exclaimed, "Cherries are ripe!" and tramped out again to visit the Luxembourg.

The beer began to go against Vandover's stomach by this time, but he forced it down his throat, shutting his eyes.

Then they said they would go to the toughest place in town, "Steve Casey's"; this was on a side-street.

The walls were covered with yellowed photographs of once-famous pugilists and old-time concert-hall singers.