And a too-sweet, tobaccoish residue lingered in Julian from his unchecked fantasies, and he laughed at himself (so like his father wrapping a fur stole around Billie Holiday’s shoulders), and he laughed at Cait O’Dwyer’s sorcery, and he wondered if, in her real life, she required a steady diet of recent heartbreak in order to manufacture fresh emotion for her consumers.

From there, it was a short step to running a charm school, where she taught the children of the powerful how to bow, curtsey and tenderly ladle punch.

Oh, Who Could Be So Heartless As To Vote Dry And Leave This Poor Child Bankrupt and His Mamma Smackless?

for, if there should appear a pocket-book, which may be drawn up by a riband from its slip case . . . the child would seize upon these with delight.