Judge — May 1934 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

Judge Mistress Pepys’ Journal By Baird Leonard PRIL 2—Wakened by a loud and cheerful masculine voice from the library bidding me to arise and shine, so, knowing Samuel to be awa, did leap from my pallet to challenge what- soever practical joker amongst our friends, if any, had managed to intrude himself, and Lord! I did discover that I had left the radio on all night, and it was nought but the daily-dozen man mustering his cohorts for bending and stretching. Small heed did I pay him, ing back to bed in the fervent hope that my carelessness had not unduly forced up our electric bill, which, even th caution, looks each month like a slice of the national debt. It is nothing short of a civic scandal that some of us must settle such accounts through a middleman instead of directly with the power companies themselves, and why the women voters, whose evangelists from 1912 to 1918 were so vocal about the reforms which a female franchise would bring to pass, have done nought in this direction is beyond my compre- hension. But neither have they done aught about the divorce laws, over the iniquity of which they were especially wi eloquent, nor lifted a finger to prevent bakers from putting on the m bread which is already sliced, and sliced far too thick, at th Glane through the journals, reminded by the smiling faces of the Easter paraders of Dryden's pronouncement, “A peace cometh from being well-dressed that religion can never bestow.” Astonished also by further comments on those Mdivani brothers, on whose doings I am well fed up, and wt albeit supposedly pressed for funds, do seem ¢ antly to be travelling about distant parts of this country and world. Bu, seldom do I hear of a per- son's having lost his all, than the next news [ have of him is that he bos hi sona t bound for Europe, a strange ¢ sequence to one who is frequently some pains to scrape up enough cash to get as far away as Boston. To luncheon at a publick with Lucy Mas- ters, and I had scallops, done to such proper turn that I asked the mai dhotel for an envelope in which to e close one, that I might show Katie } I wished our own to be prepared in the future. Z ay! What's been going on here?” 14 “Blended, eh?” PRIL 3—Popovers for breakfast, id by the first post a letter from our class president asking me if [ would make a sper our coming re- nion in June, which [ did promptly nswer in the negative, for [ do hold that persons who make speeches save in the strictest exercise of public duty (an obliging reservation on my part to exonerate such orators as Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Webster, etc.) combine a courage and stupidity which is well nigh incomprehensible. If our Presi- dent’s Cabinet had the Secretary of esthetics which it sadly needs, I am sure that one of his first efforts would be directed toward a statute prohibiting all public declamations save — those strictly necessary to the comn Thus would our ci more time for fishin and years be salvs nm weal, ngressmen have nd vote-getting, ged to the lives of waiters on duty in hotel banquet halls. So to writing notes of gratitude for the various Easter flowers w fell to my fortunate lot, and then to watching the boats along the river in the marvelous Spring sunshine, and then to the chaise- longue with “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” which Douglas Parmen- tier did send me, and found it so en- grossing that before I knew it Sam, the big zany, did burst in with his luggage and the news that he had found the Carolinas so pleasant that we must both return there at once, but I did not echo his enthusiasm wholeheartedly, having learned to mistrust all enterprises which require new apparel. But I did speak to him about the book, and did further vouchsafe that, if the large number of mystery stories I read were taken into account, I ought to be able to pull off murder without bungling it like t two poor wretches in “The Postma ict comicbooks.com