"
Mr. Lee and Mr. Tang are then both silent. Mr. Lee slips one of the
necklaces over his head. It hangs down over his American coat and American
silk shirt in a rather incongruous way. But there seems to be nothing
incongruous in the matter for Lee and Tang. Billy Lee with the necklace
around his neck, the three mandarin pendants against his belt, looks at
Mr. Tang and Mr. Tang bows and leaves.
Our matters have been fully discussed and I follow a half-hour later.
There are still twelve men in the room. They stand and sit and smoke. None
speaks. I notice in the group the immobile figure of Mr. Tang. He is
smoking an American cigarette--one of the twelve silently preoccupied
residents of Chinatown who have gathered in Billy Lee's place to wait for
something.
MEDITATION IN E MINOR
Well, well, well. The lady pianist will now oblige with something very
refined. When in the name of 750,000 gods of reason will I ever learn
enough to stay at home and go to bed instead of searching kittenishly for
diversion in neighborhood movie and vaudeville houses?
No. Wrong. The lady is not a pianist. She is merely an accompanist. She is
going to accompany something on cares? They are no more than the ripples
which one's ego a face! Two hundred and eighty-five years old, if a day.
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