Judge — February 1937 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

A BACHELOR SPEAKS HIS PIECE SHE MUST BE both pretty and clever —-pretty so that I will fall in love with her and clever so that I'll stay that way. She must never wear hairnets or facial creams to bed. She must talk like Tallu- lah Bankhead, move like Lynn Fontanne, and have eyes like Loretta Young. She should be ferninine without being cling- ing, charming without coy, well-man- nered without polite, proud without stubborn, conversational without talka- tive. She ought not to be beautiful. She must, however, be good-looking enough not to be jealous of a pretty maid in house, because I like a pretty maid in the house. She must have a soft rounded nose, soft full lips, and soft dry hands. (The maid, too.) She should not be cursed with a high-pitched voice. She ought to possess not only a sense of humor but also a sense of the ludicrous, whatever that is. She must detest cats, canaries, and other household pets. Her prea must live in North Dakota and unable to leave there on account of business. She must not be a fresh air fiend, noz fancy the smoke-filled atmos- phere of a cellar night-club. Her mind must go completely blank when attempt- ing to recall the words of a popular song. She must never drink unless I do, and always be several degrees more sober. She should never repeat any expression, joke, or pun heard on the radio. She must not care two twigs if her hair be- comes mussed for I cherish riding on the top of busses, the outside of ferries, the front of subways, and the back of obser- vation cars. She must remember that catty women are only amusing on the stage. She must be virtuous and faith. ful. She must not save pressed flowers, autographs, love letters, or soap’ premi- ums. She should be a good dancer, in order that other men will want to dance with her, while I watch in comfort. She must be willing to sit for five hours on a hard dirty seat in a hot smelly theatre just to see negro vaudeville. She should, even tho my musical education begins "Ob, my son smashed your window, did he? Well, don't get tough or I'll come over and smash the rest of them!” Judge and ends with W. C. Handy, also be acquainted with Debussey, Tschaikow- sky, and Grieg, and be able to play their compositions on the piano for my after. dinner moods. She must never ask me what I wish to eat for the next day's sup- per. She should avoid serving clam chowder, pie, canned peaches, tapioca, or liver. She should be slave to no cigarette preference and have sense enough to realize that all cigarettes taste alike. She must not utter so much as a whisper during a movie, nor desire to sit too far front or too far back. She ought to view with curled lip the monkey-shines of George Raft, Eddie Cantor, Constance Bennett, Janet Gaynor, Laurel and Hardy, Kay Francis, Andy Devine, Joan Crawford, and Warner Bros. musicals. She should keep nagging me to take her for a ride some night through Central Park in a victoria until I finally do. She must never ask a question of a dog, and then gaze at the animal as if she half. expected it to answer. She must never hang her stockings in the bathroom. She should fight with me over prior right to Winchell’s column. Her aversion should be Gilbert and Sullivan revivals, and her favorite abomination, Gilbert and Sulliyan audiences. She must never ask my criticism of a show as we are walking down the crowded stairway of the theatre. She should wait, instead, until I have formulated and presented my opinions to her, and then she should disagree with me. She must argue inces- santly, but good-naturedly, with me con- cerning all works of art, politics, philos- ophy and people. She should never take pet in exercise drills, and despite that, jook well in shorts. She must like to sleep when it's raining, walk when it's snowing, and fish when the sun is shin. ing. She should rather push a penny with her nose across the Gobi desert than enter a cafeteria. She ought to be quiet in public and noisy at home. She must be afraid of the dark. She should rise on her hind legs at the sound of an opera, yet stand in line to hear a symphonic orchestra. She ought to have little pa- tience with poetry, yet worship at the shrine of Browning and Housman. On reading this ten-fold decalogue, she must finish it very quietly, and then burst forth in fire and fury to this effect, “Say, who the hell do you think you are, you little, sniveling, bandy-legged, _ lily. livered, cockeyed, son of a bee? I've a good mind to throw your engagement ring right smack in your homely face!” But she ought only to be kidding, be- cause she must not like engagement rings, and fully realize she never got one in the first place. —Fritz MALINA. 14 comicbooks.com