plan. She was going to separate husband and wife. Ken listened with amusement to her bitter attack on that "lazy good-for-nothing ham actor, who thinks he can write."
"Di is horribly unhappy," she explained. "It's his fault. While he's around she's a rag. I'm going to smash that combination. I'm going to drive him away from her. It isn't her fault. She was brought up wrong. Her mother was too strict—an old country Catholic. Mine wasn't strict enough."
Later that night they visited a negro dance hall. Jean knew the tall straight-featured yellow youth who managed the affair. Soon Ken was watching white-teethed black boys dance in the ill-ventilated dusty ball-room. Bronze faces rouged, heavy lips penciled, in bright colored gowns, the dancers drank alkie until their tawny skins shone. They cuddled and cursed and brawled. The "Grand Carnival," as it was called, was held in an abandoned lodge hall near the negro streets. It was guarded by a dozen white policemen, several of whom forgot official duties and danced on the floor with nimble-footed partners. As the hours of the night slipped by, the number of whites increased. Slim sailors and square-shouldered marines from the Philadelphia Navy Yard scattered among the dancers. Two bands sustained a continuous throbbing rhythm.
At four o'clock, word was passed from mouth to mouth that a "pinch" was about to be made. One of the policemen arrested two brown skinned youths who were singing a "low-down." The boys were incongruously dressed as Oriental dancers and had been performing what they considered to be a mild version of the stomach dance. A few minutes later the doors of the hall were snapped closed. Tension grew. Voices rose. The dance became a Baccha-
