MANNERS & MORALS: Night Life of the Gods

Along toward dawn one morning last week, Screen Actor Humphrey Bogart was sitting, in person, in Manhattan's not quite haut monde saloon, the Stork Club. It was the hour when it is virtually impossible to decide whether a rumba band goes bonkle bonkle tonk, or tonkle tonkle bonk; when waiters' arches ache, and blondes brush the hair out of their eyes in a queenly way. Bogart, who was sipping happily on a drink, decided to send out for two 22-lb. stuffed pandas.

A lackey rushed, muttering, to Reuben's, an all-night restaurant which for reasons best known to its management, keeps...