Black & Tan Fantasy

Night Life is cut out of a very luxurious, royal-blue bolt of velvet. It sparkles with jewels, and it sparkles in tingling and tinkling tones. Some of its sparkles are more precious than precious stones; others are just splashes of costume jewelry.

Night Life seems to have been born with all its people in it, the people who had never been babies, but were born grown, completely independent. Some of them were wonderful people, and some were just hangers-on of a sort. Some of them experienced untold misfortunes, and some of them were lucky. Some of them glittered in Night Life even brighter than their names on the marqees. Some played sure things, others were inclined to gamble.

There were a few hustlers, who depended upon finding suckers for survival. And there were some who were too wise to hustle, who only wanted to have enough money to be able to afford to be a sucker. Night Life had a song and a dance. Night Life was New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Paris, Berlin; uptown, downtown; Harlem, out South; anywhere where they wore that gorgeous velvet mantle.