Life — February 17, 1916 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

OG we hears They Get Together Scent.—Grace Fields's Dance Club at Claridge’s. In the middle of @ large, high-ceiled and pleasantly lighted but gloomily decorated room is a smooth dancing space. An orchestra supplies rag:time music, singularly free from the barbaric introduction of tom-toms, kazoos, cymbals and siren whistles. General activity is supplied by arriving and departing guests, dancers leaving and returning to their tables, waiters presenting checks and haughtily accepting large tips, inebriated gentlemen who are not members of the club insisting on their right to enter, but in the main an atmosphere. of rational en- joyment, punctuated by extravagant and ridiculous dressing on the part of the sufrage ser. Time.—Any old evening after the theatre Jutiet Miter (from “ Erstwhile Susan”): Really, this is pleasanter than Barnaby Dreary’s. I can’t help recalling those lovely lines, “On with the dance; let joy beer unbesteined.” I prefer champagne myself. Steve Hocan (from “Town Topics"): Watch your watch, Juliet—watch your watch when you swallow them bubbles. Etten Neat (from “Common Clay"): Why, Mr. Hogan, your tough talk reminds me of that low dance place where I met my millionaire husband who tried to shake me. This isn't a bit like that. Jean Paure (from “ The Great Lover,” who happens to be sitting at a nearby table and surveys the last speaker through his monocle); Mon Dieu! Jerry, who is that fine woman? How does it occur that I have never had an affair with her? Jerry Primrose (from “ The Cinderella Man,” who is tem- porarily a waiter at Claridge’s): It's easy, maestro; she never had the price of un opera ticket until she was safely married. Tue Woman (from “ Just a Woman,” who has overheard Jerry's remark): How that takes me back to dear old Pitts- burgh when I was the happy wife of a drunken puddler in the days before he became rich. The orchestra has an eruption, and Emma McCuesney starts to dance with Ave Potasn. Esa: What sort of a sale are you getting, Abe, for that “ First Lady of the Land” orchid tunic you put on sale when the President got married? Ave: Fine, Emma, fine; but we don’t get no more perfect forty-twos to show it to our customers since all our models got on the stage and into the society fashion shows at the Ritz and Bilkmore. . Lone Joun Sitver (from “ Treasure Island,” overheard in a suave discussion twith a waiter): Easy, now, my son, easy; I may have been a pirate and again I may not have been a pirate, but never in my career, afloat and ashore, have I met with anything like this charge of two dollars and seventy cents per person for a ham sandwich. But easy come, easy go, on the Broad White Way. Here's your gold. Gary (from “ Stop! Look! Listen!"): Ah, M’sieu Silver, you are ze real gent'man after my own ‘eart. You perhaps ask me to a p'tit dejeuner some day, hein? An’ after zat you xo wiz me to my milliner to see a nice pretty li'l’ bonnet for me, hein? Baxsana Uxvexsuart (from “ Major Barbara,” sitting at the “LIF E* next table with Dezcan, Fotx, from “ The Pride of Race”): No, Deegan, I am inclined to agree with my father that the shot-gun, properly applied, is almost as uplifting an influence as religious rag-time with a tambourine accompaniment. Both, however, provide an amusing relief from the smugness of British middle-class respectability. Dercan: I think if you would take one-sixteenth of each and have it come out in some future generation you would get a telling color effect. But, after all, work—work—is the great thing. One-sixteenth work in the day-time and rag-time all night—that's the solution. Caroting Knotys (from “The Unchastened Woman,” com- ing across the room to break into the conversation): Il wager, Barbara, you're talking munitions or religion. But I hear you are engaged to Professor Dolly Cusins. He and I spent eight years together once, studying Greek in Greece. I hope you'll be awfully happy with him, and I'll drop in on you often, Staccato male and female giggling is heard from a corner table, Bitty Barttett and Buanny Wueeter, from “ Fair and Warmer,” have secured all the bottles from the bar, and in a wine cooler are hilariously mixing their contents into what they think is a cocktail, Cuarvotte, from “ Hip-Hip-Hooray,” glides down the floor on one roller-skate and with the toe of the other deftly extracting the prussic-acid bottle they have just emptied, disappears with it into the maze of dancers, Mayor Stoxe and Juvce Torrivce, from “The Fear Market,” are secretly making notes of these proceedings on their napkins for use in future blackmailing. Hovering around the table of the young couple, and attired in her nursing costume, is ctsta Xetva, from “ The Boomerang,” prepared to minister to Bianny when the cocktail knocks her out. MMA, DO YOU MIND IP WE PRAY FOR KITTENS? I'M SURE PUSSY WON'T CARE