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“Be very friendly to Al, please,” said Mrs. Felman, as they all sat around the dining-room table. “He’s a very smart man—works in the mail-order business, selling cheap jewelry to country people, and makes a pile of money. His seven dollars a week come in mighty handy to us, I can tell you.”

“Dammit, all business is going good except whiskey,” said Mr. Felman, as though he were inviting an elusive conspiracy to share the firmness of his tones. “These prohibition fanatics are ruining everything. The saloon-keepers are all afraid they’re gonna be closed up, and they won’t buy. I haven’t sold a barrel in two days. I don’t know what the world’s coming to with all these here prohibitions. People are entirely too busy telling each other what to do, and nobody minds his own business any more.... Well, anyway, Carl, there’s still sample bottles for you to swipe from my overcoat pockets.”

He said the last words with a bearish joviality, and had the expression of a bear who has paddled to within a mile of irony and is sniffing at the singular realm.