Judge — July 1932 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

JUDGE Mastress Pepys Journal By Baird Leonard UNE 11.—Awake betimes in West- J bury, faintly conscious of some re- cent pronouncement of doom, and then my loss last night of sixty-four dollars at bridge did recur to me, which is enough to dishearten any woman who knows even much as that a King is distinyuished from a Knave by the possession of a beard, but Lord! throughout the entire eve- ning my partners did play as though they had been bought off by our op- ponents, and I have always found it difficult in the game of contract to defeat three people. Samuel in, be- seeching me for a bit of my break- fast ham in which to wrap a pellet for my little dog Fafnir, and I did make him dose the animal in my pres- the ence in order to be certain of tasty morsel’s destination. His course this morning full of so during which he did vouchsafe no woman is a complete fool, that Effie Hopping was the exception which proved that rule’s truth, whereupon I did go him one better by stating that Effie an exception which proved nothing except that there should be no rule. He told me also that he had cashed another large cheque for Biff Haskins, Biff’s policy when he does lo: ut poker, being to underwrite a sum larger than his loss, and turn over the change to his spouse as his winnings. Up and did on my coral georgette suit, and so to the United Hunts meeting on the estates of Secretary Stimson and Thomas White, borne thither on the top of a coach behind four horses, and those who told us we made a brave sight were literally correct as to their adjective, for never, in spite of my host's skill and fame as a horseman, did my heart pound louder from sheer terror, forasmuch as concrete roads and a multiplicity of motor cars h: robbed me of all ure I was wont to take in “Tt's your broker calling for more margin, sir!” driving, and I had liefer arrive any- where in a governess cart qr a 1916 Ford than behind animals, however spanking. Luncheon at the track, a great company gathering about our commissary ggon to feed on chicken patés, aragus vinaigrette, etc., after which I did crawl into a motor to be out of the sun and did astonish the steeplechase fans by hemstitching on a traycloth during some of the major events. But I did not miss the race which Beth Bosley's Blue Banner won, my excitement al- most matching Beth’s, and had it not been for the calmness of my cozen Florence Beth would have gone home without her added training fee and a great silver bowl which any woman would be mighty pleased to own. 2 12.—(Lord’s Day). Lay late pondering this and that, in espe- cial what I should save if I were allowed to carry only one object from a conflagration of my house, and 1 did finally decide on my pet manicure scissors, which are far more import- ant to me than any jewel or first edi- tion. Anne Billings in to chat with me before I arose, and she was so unwelcome that an example of faulty diction from an old grammar did pop into my mind, “Upon entering the room the visitor’s eye is struck by a porcelain umbrella.” But Anne did regale me with a few spiced items, amongst them being the news that she is not going to marry the Englishman for whom she has been setting her cap the past six months, and for the reason that he does al- ways give waiters an exact ten per cent of the bill, which I did tell her was as good grounds as any for breaking off with him, and was minded of the notes which H. G. Wells once took on domestic infelic- ity, wherein he discovered that one woman had divorced her husband be- cause every morning he sang in his bathtub, “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.” Luncheon on the ter- race, delighted to find Mistress Hastings at my table, and she did tell me that she no longer has any contemporaries, all of them being engaged in playing harps or shovel- ing coal. Much talk of exercise after the meal, some being for golf, some for tennis, some for a tramp through the woods. But I did slink into the library with a pack of patience cards, having found long since that only one form of exercise every stood me in any stead soever, that being the proverbial one of pushing myself away from the dining-table. comicbooks.com