Life — November 3, 1921 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

Gus Never mind. We’re going to have an entire change of bill next week. I've just rented a fillum by the name The Soul of a Landlord. LEONORA (Loudly and speaking straight out at the audience as though feeding for a gag): any soul. I didn’t think a landlord had Gus (Springing the gag): He hasn't. In this fillum he turns out onto the streets a man, his wife, six children and three cases of rye. LEONORA (After waiting for the laugh): My cousin out in Ne- braska made some grape juice which had only one-half of one per cent. alcohol in it, and still he got pinched. Gus (In honor bound): What for? LEonoRA (Pulling another gag): Well, right away the alcohol be- gun to draw interest at the rate of a hundred per cent. per annum, They arrested him for usury. (Talking through the laugh, if any, because you never can tell how an audience is going to take a line. What will stop the show in the Colonial won't get a glimmer out in Union Hill): And was he tried for it? LEonorA (Speaking more distinctly, as she realises that maybe she didn't spring the last one right and that’s why they muffed it): Sure he was, but the judge said the evidence was so strong, he couldn't let it go to the jury. So he drank it himself. Gus (In an undertone to Leonora): Kreisler! They're a lunch of tough babies out there to-night. (Aloud to audi- ence): They're beginning to enforce the law at that. Last week a Sixth Avenue saloon keeper got fined two hundred dollars for selling six high balls. LEONORA (Slowly and with great emphasis): Two hundred dol- lars is a big fine for selling six high balls. Mrs. Cat: Gus (With the calmness of despair, because if they won't laugh at this, they won't laugh at anything): 1 know it is, and after the saloon keeper got through paying his lawyer he only had a profit of fifty dollars. : LEoNoRA (Aside to Gus): T'll cut the routine down to the shad cue, (This means that they drop out of their performance a dialogue involving (a) the waiter who got shot for chu ing two dollars for liver and onions and the coroner said he died of liver trouble, (b) the lady who got a present of a genuine oriental pearl necklace and all it cost her husband was $200 because he hired a cheap divorce lawyer, and (c) four other gags just as bad. She then speaks the fol- ing line aloud to the audience): Last week I ordered broiled shad roe and it wasn't no bigger than a sardine. Gus (All hope fled): Didn't they take it back? Leonora No sir, all they said was the roes come small this year because the shad are practicing birth control. (She stresses the words birth control. It is a cue. After waiting for the laugh enter a Rube and his son. They are dressed as nearly like Chic Sale as they can remember, but they have poor memories.) Ruse =xcuse me, Mister, but you don’t happen to know where I could get my son here a job as a moving picture actor? (He speaks with an accent that blends Chic Sale with Van & Schenck and Yorke & Adams.) Gus (Hopefully as though saying: Maybe they'll laugh at this guy. You can’t tell): What qualifications has he? Ruse Well, he’s very ignorant, and don’t seem to hurt himself none when he gets run over. (Complete silence. There is a quarter of an hour more of this, only worse if anything, and Curtain Get out! That badge is only a dog license. comicbooks.com