A good-looking lad, much flushed and a little unsteady, stopped by her chair.
"Say, k-kid," he exclaimed, with a disarming chuckle, "you're the prettiest girl here--and you come here with three p-protectors! Say, it's a shame!" He lurched cheerfully upon his way and even the slightly conservative husband found a grudging smile wrung out of him.
There is a pianist at the Black Cat--a real pianist, not just a person who plays the piano.

She is a striking figure in a quaint, tunic-like dress, greying hair and a keen face, and a personal friend of half the frequenters.

She has an uncanny instinct for the psychology of the moment.

She knows just when "Columbia" will be the proper thing to play, and when the crowd demands the newest rag-time.

She will feel an atmospheric change as unswervingly as any barometer, and switch in a moment from "Good-bye Girls, Good-bye" to the love duet from Faust.
She can play Chopin just as well as she can play Sousa, and she will tactfully strike up "It's Always Fair Weather" when she sees a crowd of young fellows sit down at a table; "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" to welcome a lad in khaki; and the very latest fox trot for the party of girls and young men from uptown, who look as though they were dying to dance.