1939 The Gentleman's Companion volume II Beeing an Exotic Drinking Book

THE EXOTIC DRINKING BOOK

were there with a person not apt to mention, listening to Tommy Ly– man sing Montmartre Rose, and wondering what we were going to do next day, when a stalwart young chap barged up and invited him– self to our table-a practice which we are not likely to view with any great amount of enthusiasm in Paris, Paraguay or Patagonia. But this time it was all right. His name was O'Malley and he had a Cadillac 8, and after the war he had married him a French wife who got lonesome when he took her to Union City, New Jersey-and we don't have to be French to be thatl-and so he had brought her back to France, Cadillac and all. And why the hell did I spend 12 dollars a day to Franco-Belgique tours for a motor car when I could hire his for 9 or less. Certainly, why? . . . Well, O'Malley not only had a Cadillac 8 and a French wife, but he knew all 16 of the current crop of Tiller girls living in their dormitory with a matron and chaperones and all, over in Montmartre. But unless they had been misbehaving and were under censure, they were all allowed nights out until 12 midnight, so we started at the end of the line and went along, count– ing off from right to left; and what dancing partners; what grand fun they were! Well, one afternoon we and O'Malley and our current assignment of Tiller were out at Versailles absorbing French history, then toward evening we stopped at a big sort of a chateau turned into a restaurant-hotel not too far from the great Palace, for a little liquid nourishment. And while we were waiting they brought us a bowl of big red ripe cherries in cracked ice, and O'Malley had an idea. "I know," he said, holding up a cherry pit, "I'll invent a drink." Now a gentleman from Union City, New Jersey, who had a French wife and a Cadillac 8, in Paris, and who hired out to Franco-Belgique tours yet also hired out for less to us, was shock enough for any one stay in Paris; but one who further invented drinks, made us slightly dizzy. "Of course. Sure. Invent one," we added with all the conviction we feel when we see cinemas of Senators kissing babies. "Celeste's old man work~ at the Florida. Her old man invents dr~nks too. We invent drinks together," he explained. Celeste was O'Malley's wife, of course. "We invent swell drinks."

• 1 33 •