Our Third Lily: Runyon again & bootleggers ahoy

The Lily of St Pierre by Damon Runyon short story, published 1930 [ excerpt, based in a Manhattan late-night club ] Well, naturally, we finally get around to torch songs, as guys who are singing in quartet are bound to do, especially at four o’clock in the morning, a torch song being a song which guys sing when they have the big burnt-up feeling inside themselves over a battle with their dolls.…