Judge — December 1937 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

MR. PEABODY LIKES OLIVES R. PEABODY sat and goggled sol- emnly at the olive down at the bottom of his fifth Martini, which some- one had just poured him. It was the same olive which had been at the bottom of his first Martini, Five Martinis, and all the time that damned olive at the bottom, getting pickled-er and pickled-er. No, he took that back. It wasn’t a damned olive; Mr. Peabody liked olives, and it wasn’t their fault that some offi- cious busybody had declared that the olive in a Martini shouldn't be eaten. He drained off the Martini so as to get a better look at the olive. That was why the edge of a Martini glass turned in; it was to keep the olive from rolling into your mouth. When in doubt, you had only to take a good look at your glass. If it turned in at the top, it was a Martini glass, and you couldn't properly eat the olive. If the glass went straight out at the top, then it was a Man- hattan glass and you weren't drinking Martinis at all, but Manhattans. In that case the olive at the bottom of the glass was really a cherry and it was all right to eat it. Mr. Peabody liked olives even when they were cherries and you could eat them. When they were olives and you couldn't eat them, he was always sorry. In this case, there was no doubt about it; he carefully ran a finger up the side of the glass to make sure, and found the glass turned unmistakably in. So it was an olive. Anyway, it was Charlie Mor. ton’s party, and Charlie always was care- ful to have things right. Charlie was a great one about drinking correctly. Okay to eat cherries. Sure, that's all right. But poor old olives, you couldn't touch ‘em because somebody said so. It didn’t seem right, and Mr. Peabody felt like remarking the fact. “'§ darn shame!” he told a woman sitting nearby, but she just kept on star- ing at him with that big white shiny face of hers. Mr. Peabody peered more closely. No, it wasn’t her big white shiny face. It was her back. That accounted for the blank expression. Apparently she hadn't heard him speak. Oh, well. He went back to his meditations. Cherries, eat ‘em, olives, don’t. White wines chilled, red wines, room tempera- ture. Just one of those little rules a per- son had to follow if he wanted to drink correctly. OF A sudden, though, Mr. Peabody was pretty disgusted with people who always drank correctly. A lot of Charlie Mortons, that's what they were. They never got any fun out of life. Hell, Mr. Peabody he'd drink his Burgundy out of a can if it was good Burgundy. Conductor—Ticket, please! ““A lotta Sharlie Mortons, az wha’ they are," he blurted moodily. This time he spoke a little louder, and his remark got across to several people, including Char. lie Morton.’ Charlie turned, raising his eyebrows gayly. He smirked about the group, gathering them all into the fun, and asked: “Who's a lot of Charlie Mortons, Jim?” Mr. Peabody fixed him with a beady stare. “You'll find out,” he replied heavily, and then withdrew once more into the austere realms of his mind, while Charlie went off from group to group to point surreptitiously to Mr. Peabody with his eyes and remark with a sly chuckle: “Look at old Jim—he's beginning to feel his.” EANWHILE, Mr. Peabody brooded further on the olive. He knew what Charlie Morton would say about even thinking of eating the olive. Always talk- ing about the Europeans and how they knew how to drink properly, Charlie was. The Europeans did this, the Euro. peans did that—fie on the Europeans! A whatchacallit—murrain on them! Bunch of old debt-defaulters! Let ‘em drink their way, and he, Mr. Peabody, would take the low road. When Priscilla Alden comicbooks.com