Saturday midnight
Men and women live on the single , and prey on each other . One half are sharks , and the other half are their victims ! '' But there were two persons in New York City who now feared to approach each other . Emil Einstein , after a whispered conference with his pale-faced mother in her shabby den on the East Side , hastily called a wagon and transported all his slender effects to the little room in rear of Magdal 's Pharmacy , where the bogus doctor had had his Sunday conferences with his bibulous patrons -- the regular `` sick people '' -- sick of a thirst , beginning officially with Saturday midnight and ending , providentially , on Monday morning . Bob Timmins and Emil Einstein were already secret allies and the Don Juans of a coterie of haphazard Sixth Avenue beauties . There was a usefulness to both in the new alliance , and Einstein was already the destined secret patron of the degraded Timmins . `` It 's a good shelter for me , '' mused the adroit Hebrew , `` but I 'll never tell him a word of the old man . ''