Judge — January 1937 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

Dees D, BY BAIRD DECEMBER 15.—Lay late, pondering many things, in especial how Mary Queen of Scots said that when she died, Calais would be found written across her heart, and I am certain that a large green truck will be embossed on mine, for the other evening when I did start for the Detroit train, with more than an adequate margin of time to get around the corner to the Grand Central, we were halted in Forty-ninth Street by commercial traffic both fore and aft to a point where I was obliged to be re- solved that probably never in my life would I get to the Detroit Athletic Club and Charlie Hughes, for which and whom I have written for fifteen years. And my servant Helen, who ac- companied me, sagely said that the LEONARD whole business was too awful even to be contemplated in the future, where- upon I was minded of Wordsworth and his confession that the meanest flower that blows could give him thoughts which lay too deep for tears, an obser- vation which has always seemed to me extremely silly, but though the connec- tion was not apt, it inspired the realiza- tion that some things are too terrible to think about, and that the adjective “‘re- solved” is one of the most significant in our language. So sadly home, but somewhat cheered by a large box of autumn flowers from my cozen's gar- dener, and then up to dine with Cora Scovil, who did tell me how she was going out on Sunday night and found that she could not unfasten the zipper of the pyjamas which she had been wearing during the afternoon, and the only available help was the engincer of her apartment building, who came up with a great box of tools and started to work with pliers on a gadget which was difficult to grasp even in the most deli- cate feminine fingers, and with no suc- cess, neither, and she was loath to let her maid slit a seam because she was wearing a chiffon slip for which she had paid forty-five dollars only the day before and feared it would be ruined in the process, but that is what had to be done. Nor was she much heartened, neither, by Eddie Thalman’s calling in the midst of her anguish with an injunction not to dress. “Not dress!’ quoth Coco, “I expect to be in black satin pyjamas for the rest of my life!” DECEMBER 16.—The morning post full of the usual seasonal charity appeals, but I am so interested in the camp for diabetic children which I am trying to help Dr. Scott perpetuate that I was obliged to harden my heart against all of them save the Salvation Army, realiz- ing that other persons more solvent than I will come to the aid of those in sick- ness or distress. All the day at my desk, cleaning it up against the approach of a new year, and then Flo Buffun to tea, telling me how last night she had been obliged to take her dog out in the small hours, and had descended the stairs to find her own watchman pointing a gun at her. The only answer to that, me- thinks, is that the man should have his wage raised. And when I asked her to have a cocktail after our matronly libations, she refused, saying that she would have to be cold stone sober to- night forasmuch as she was going to turn the heel of a sock. By the evening “post a cheque from the electric company for ten dollars and thirty-two cents, squaring a deposit and the interest thereon which I did make years ago and had completely forgotten, and I was tremendously cheered until Sam heard of it and did remark that now I should feel justified in going out and spending twenty dollars on something of which I have no need. Dinner at home, of pheasant casserole, very fine, albeit I could wish fewer of my friends were Nimrods, for of late we have had so much game in the house that I am puz- zled to understand why men, if they must shoot at birds, are not content to leave the field without their spoils. comicbooks.com