Judge — August 22, 1931 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JUDGE Horticulture (Tite good old-time rubber plant that once flourished in the stately mansions of our grandparents has gone clean out of style, and I recently decided to find out why. Nobody, various florists informed me, except very lowly and simple folk, buys rubber plants nowadays, and they ean only be had in small Third Avenue flower shops. Yet the rubber plant is the best buy in the plant line, and hasn’t fallen off a bit in value since the good old days when it was appreciated, Never a thing of beauty, the rubber plant is a sturdy affair and practically ‘never wears out. It just goes on and on for years and years— and up and up, too, unless you keep pruning it. It's been known to grow as high as two or three stories, so one florist said (altho [ think that is stretching things a bit, even fora rubber plant). No, nothing could be plainer— just a long stalk with great, droopy leaves branching out from it; no color, no sweet woodland aroma, no wild- flower grace—but what a bargain! What a buy! In these hard times it appeals to me as just the thing for frugal souls to buy and set aside for a rainier day. Weak End ¢ people who invite a houseful of guests for the weck-end—and actually get a lot of fun out of it. But I wouldn't know about that. For the sort of people I manage to get out to my place (‘Bellyacres”) in Connecticut don't show any proclivities for spending xty hours from Friday afternoon to Monday A. M. ing the Lucretian life, which consists of sitting under trees and discussing anything from Abou-ben Ad- hem's sex life to the difference between lady bugs and Aristotle, varying this procedure with an exercise known as reaching for another. No, my pals are nothing like that. Without exception they are low forms of life who never exercise from one ry tell me there \ yas us’ \WONDERIN' WHERE SNNIOR GST THAT SUF Afovr gona ERGS FER SWIMMIN' \NITH: WEEK-END —\MEAN ONE Like You! 5 Hs Le Cg I end of the year to the other —except for the sixty hours they spend at my house. They arrive, all pepped up from the drive and, without wait ing to change or rest, they fall to the pursuit of muscle building, wind- taki ergy - robbing sport. All of which wouldn't bad. For while guests are busy at bad- minton on the lawn or at human polo, there is little danger of them starting a scandal which might end up in Reno and later in a blood-curdling mystery called “House-party Murder.” But the catch lies in this: the host (which is me) is expected to keep up with them, indulging with them in their every strenuous athletic faney—and my goodie grapenuts, what energy they put into their pl: Well, they've got to— only sixty hours to make up a year's flabbiness and take off a year’s extra weight. The result is that by Monda morning the host (which is me) is so completely muscle bound, charley horsed, apoplectic with health and fes- tooned with torn muscles, ligaments, cuts and adhesive— not to mention smelling of arnica—he (me) is absolutely no good for the rest of the week. And when the host (me again) finally gets back to normal—by Dick's odd hat- band—if it isn’t Friday again and a new load of soft- muscled guests are arriving with the lust for exercise shining in their obscene ey I have drawn up the following little chart, showing just how it all works out mathematically. Here is the average amount of time put in by a house-party in the pursuit of the red corpuscle, figured in ergs, or units of work, the list not including time spent working on jigsaw puzzle tortures and other sitting games: be so 8 hrs. + hirs. 4hrs. 2 hrs. 2 hrs. Swimming... ++ 16,000,000 ergs Tramping in the woods. + 8,000,000 Ping-pong. + 8,000,000 Bending for ping -pong balls... 4,000,000 Changing phonogr aph records, 4,000,340 8hrs. Bridge... + 16,000,000 Ghrs. Dancin, . + 12,000,000 Ghrs.. Searching the woods for miss: ing wives with other hus- bands. . Croquet Badminton . rrr reer Horseshoe pitching.......+66 Lawn bowls (I have no lawn bowls). cece eee wee Drinking. ‘ . ce eeeee 12,172,606 4,000,000 8,172,946 6,000,000 2 hrs. +hrs, 2 hrs. O hrs. 12 hrs. 28,000,000 60 hrs. 126,345,892 Somewhere in the chart there is a lot of sleep fitted, but don’t ask me where. comicbooks.com