Why, I don’t know, Fred—what are you going to have? Then I guess I’ll have a highball, too; please, just a little one. Is it really real Scotch? Well, that will be a new experience for me. You ought to see the Scotch I’ve got home in my cupboard; at least it was in the cupboard this morning—it’s probably eaten its way out by now. I got it for my birthday. The only other thing I got was a year older. The person that gave me that Scotch must have heard some rumor that I was making a collection of lethal weapons.
—Dorothy Parker, "Just a Little One," from the May 12, 1928 issue of The New Yorker.
Photo: The Hunt Club speakeasy in the theater district, 1932. Margaret Bourke-White for Life magazine