“Go and have a good time now, and I'll see you tomorrow when it's my turn,” said the next in line, without any protest from her former or future possessors. And off they went in different directions or perhaps accompanied the couple to the door of Elvira's place, dark and quiet at that hour. The procedure resembled a primitive nuptial procession of ancient times, before women became a possession that men refused to share.

That is why Santa appeared nightly surrounded by an escort of wealthy champions wearing distinguished surnames and clothing tailored in London. Everyone knew that with her arrival champagne corks would begin to pop and the adjunct members of the party would begin to summon pretty girls from other tables, some of whom approached the distinguished group awkwardly, others, without any reservation, but all with the scarcely concealed resentment of their non-paying boyfriends, who almost did not let them go. Santa's party-within-a-party was just a little better behaved than most at the Tivoli Central, because, if it is true that even the most refined members adopted the generally wanton tone of the place, they did draw the line at physical violence, or at least bloodshed, making an effort to calm the confrontational impulses of Santa and her more pugnacious partisans, whose drunken insolence rivaled that of any other customers. Breaking glasses and plates was perfectly fine, in other words, but getting one's nose bloodied in a tussle with some nobody was not so good. Santa's free-spending group had Ravioli and the waiters on its side, as well as a number of the guardians of order, who found less inspiration in the faithful fulfillment of their civic duty than in the silver pesos of the gentlemen of the Sport Club.

The other customers looked askance at the phalanx of aristocrats around Santa, partly because they looked so longingly at Santa herself. The result was mutual antipathy and continual verbal sparring, loud (but coded) insults, and feigned, provocative laughter.

“Ravioli, send me a cigar in a tuxedo, 'cause it looks like they're in style,” a troublemaker might shout, glaring in the direction of Santa's party.

“Ravioli, serve me a leg that doesn't stink of perfume, not like those,” a girl might call out while looking straight at Santa, “a drumstick, I mean.” (Her former client, now at Santa's side, had refused to acknowledge her that night, it seems, with so much as a nod.) Other times, Santa made fun of some professional colleague or other, garnering a salvo of gleeful guffaws from her various co-proprietors.