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

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.

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.