The Human Cocktail

‘THE Noble Experiment’ has created many new and picturesque occupations. The bootlegger and hi-jacker are now national institutions. But the most novel, and in many ways the most interesting, is the Human Cocktail. I beheld it in action once, and it was an unqualified success.

I had occasion to attend one of those functions known as Banquets, which was graced by the presence of several hundred American Business Men. It was just as stodgy and funereal, in its early stages, as all such functions are.

As the American Business Man was addressing himself to a minute portion of broiled chicken, I reflected that the zero hour would soon come and floods of oratory would be turned loose. I was one of several who sat cowering at the Speakers’ Table. From this vantage point I saw a young woman suddenly appear at the far end of the room. She had evidently emerged from behind a screen placed conveniently near a door. She was dressed in scarlet, and from the remote distance looked attractive. She walked slowly down one of the long aisles between the tables. I thought she assessed the gathering with an appraising eye. As she passed along, surprised and somewhat terrified glances were directed toward her by the banqueters. When halfway down the room she began to sing softly and liltingly. Presently her figure began to sway and she broke into a cakewalk, with arms outstretched and palms turned down. The broiled chicken was forgotten; the American Business Man was thinking of something else. She made the entire circuit of the room. She nodded and smiled to the more responsive faces, and waved her hand to distant beholders.

Her circuit brought, her to a small raised platform upon which was a piano. She sat down at it and her fingers moved silently on the keys. I was preparing myself for the inevitable outburst of jazz, when she struck a chord and sprang to her feet. All her languor had disappeared; she was incarnate fire and flame. ‘Sing — everybody sing!’ she cried. She sang the first few lines of a familiar sentimental ditty. She sang alone — not a masculine voice joined her. She left the platform and swept up and dowm the room. Presently a few of the bolder found voice and there was a feeble chorus. Suddenly she pointed a long finger at a shamefaced diner.

‘There is a voice. Who is he?’

A dozen willing friends announced that it was Bill.

‘Come here, Bill — you can sing,’she commanded.

Bill was hoisted from his chair by his admirers, and he sheepishly followed the lady. She took him by the arm and dragged him along. Bill, anxious to have others share his fate, identified more voices, and they were dragged from their seats. Presently she had a roughly extemporized double quartette, and they all returned to the piano. In two minutes she had set them in their places, told them what to do, and made them her willing slaves.

With the aid of her octette, she ran through a programme of familiar songs. Little by little the others began to respond, and the choruses became more substantial and less tuneful.

‘You all know this one,’ she shouted, and, stepping to a table, she took a glass and a knife. Then she began to sing ‘Jingle Bells.’ tapping the glass with the knife. The American Business Man was on sure ground now, and over and over again this song, in praise of a now almost unknown vehicle, was repeated. I looked down upon an inspiring sight — four hundred men of mature years, smiling like cherubs, beating time on empty water glasses, and singing their hearts out, with swaying bodies and wagging heads.

From then on it was plain sailing. She called for request numbers. She could sing and play anything they could suggest. How or where she had learned the words of songs long buried in oblivion I do not venture to explain. I waited to see how soon the choice would turn to more modern and less innocent numbers. I had forgotten for the moment — what the lady knew — that the American Business Man likes a little naughtiness, but adores sentiment with all the fervor of a starved boy. How they sang, bellowed, and roared! One rubicund gentleman near me melted into tears. They were having a perfectly lovely time.

The viands were forgotten, but we got through the dinner somehow, and the lady disappeared. The speeches were as bad as usual, and quite as long. The diners paid scant attention. They watched the end of the room furtively, with knives poised in mid-air. The ordeal was over, and again the lady in scarlet swept in, more animated, more eager than ever. The spectacle was repeated. More howls and roars, more tears, more laughter. She had forty men around the piano now, perspiring, ardent, vocal.

It seemed likely to go on forever. There was limitless vitality in that slender little body, and how she did give it out! The evening wore on. There was nothing stodgy or funereal about it now. The diners were like schoolboys vying with each other for a word of approval, an admiring glance or smile of appreciation from teacher.

It was long past midnight, but no one thought of going home — I least of all. There came a pause in the tempest of song. The lady sat, smiling, at the piano. Her mood changed; pensiveness replaced ‘pep,’ and her fingers strayed over the keys. Then softly, very softly, there reached my ears the refrain of the one song dearer to the Business Man’s heart than any other. It was ‘Seeing Nellie Home.’ The lady had the remnant of a voice, and she used it with consummate skill. In the tense silence the whispered words reached the remotest limits of the room. That trivial little air became a haunting, beguiling, bewitching thing. The diners all rose to their feet. The lady sang louder; she sprang to a chair, and waved her arms in time with the melody. With a roar, they followed her.

Like an inspired conductor she led them along, through every variation of tone and volume, from tearful, sepulchral whispers to howls of delirium. It was an emotional orgy, and the American Business Man was having the time of his life. They sang, and then sang again:—

And then, all together, pianissimo: —

Ad infinitum

At last it was all over. The lady made a dramatic exit with much handwaving and smiling, and the American Business Man mopped his beaded brow and hunted for his overshoes.

I went to bed in the small hours, but I could still hear belated diners going down the street, announcing to all the world that they were ‘seeing Nellie ho-o-ome,’ even as they sought the drab environs of their emotionally sterile abodes. It was a great night.

I rose and breakfasted early the next morning. As I came out of the dining room I saw a tiny feminine figure in a great leather chair in the hotel office. It was a pallid reflection of the Lady in Red.

An indescribably thin little chin was buried in the palm of a thinner hand. Lacklustre eyes stared unseeing at the floor. Every line in her body shouted fatigue, utter and absolute.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘you gave us a great party.’

‘I am glad you enjoyed it,’ she answered.

‘It must be very hard work,’ I added, in genuine sympathy. ‘Do you do it often?’

She rose and gathered her coat about her.

‘As often as I can secure engagements,’ she said; ‘and I have a good many. It is hard work, but I enjoy it. The poor dears do have such a good time, and they must have something to make their dreadful banquets go.’

As she passed me to go to a waiting taxi a wan little smile appeared upon her weary lips, and a faint shadow of the Lady in Red appeared as she said:—

‘To-night I am with the Plumbing Fixtures. It’s a great life, if you don’t weaken.’

I thought it certainly was.