"Here's luck," and such archaic phrases were faintly audible. Miss
Chuff kept her gaze fastened on the empty tumbler.

Suddenly her rigid pose relaxed. She drooped forward in her chair,
with her head sunk and hands limp. Tenderly and reverently
Quimbleton bent over her. Then, his face shining with triumph, he
spoke to the hushed watchers.

"She is in the trance," he said. "Gentlemen, her happy soul is in
touch with the departed spirits. What'll you have? Don't all speak
at once."

Fifty-nine, in hushed voices, petitioned for a Bronx. Quimbleton
turned to the unconscious girl.

"Fifty-nine devotees," he said, "ask that the spirit of the Bronx
cocktail vouchsafe his presence among us."

Miss Chuff's slender figure stiffened again. Her hand went out to
the glass beside her, and raised it to her lips. Some of the more
eagerly credulous afterwards asserted that they had seen a cloudy
yellow liquid appear in the vessel, but it is not improbable that
the wish was father to the vision. At any rate, the fifty-nine
suppliants experienced at that instant a gush of sweet coolness
down their throats, and the unmistakable subsequent tingle. They
gazed at each other with a wild surmise.

"How about another?" said one in a thrilling whisper.

"Take your turn," said Quimbleton. "Who's next?"