Life — May 3, 1923 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

“Don’t you wish you could do that, Willie? I betcha it’s awfully hard to do.” “Hard nothin’! He only knocks off what he don’t need.” Looking at It Sensibly in Jonesville | *VE just been to see one of my oldest customers in his home,” said the gray-haired commercial traveller. “I remember him when he and his wife started housekeeping in a five-roomed cottage on Elm Street. It was heated by a_ base-burner and decorated with a. Stag at Bay. To-day I found them in an apartment on the twelfth floor of the New Lu- cullus, hovering over a radiator con- trolled by a prominent member of the Union of Stationary Engineers. When he lived in the cottage, he was trying to reduce his mortgage; now, he’s trying to reduce his blood pressure. “He had me in to talk about his son. The boy is going to be mar- ried and his father wants him to start simply. For instance, he doesn’t think the lad and his bride should take a flat in the New Lucullus; he says no apartment house is big enough for two families. He wants the boy and his bride to take a little suburban’ villa that a good firm is willing to let them have for forty thousand. At least, that would do temporarily, while the son looked around for something to do. He is only twenty-nine, and hasn’t decided what to follow, although he has thought some of the automobile game. He drives splendidly. “The old man asked me what I thought about his plans, and I told him I thought they were simple enough.” McC. H. The Thirty Years’ Wait URING the recent celebration of the thirtieth birthday of the Waldorf-Astoria a rather pitiful event took place which did not find its way into the newspapers. Our Waldorf correspondent happened to be the only one who witnessed it, and has sent us in his version of the af- fair. Take it or, perhaps, leave it. As the guests were filing through the lobby on their way to the ban- quet, several of those in the rear of the procession heard a low moaning issuing from the corner of a sofa in Peacock Alley. Those who were cu- rious enough to investigate found that it came from a little old man who was huddled up almost conceal- ed by the heavy wall-curtains. He wore evening clothes which re- sembled those worn by the Knights of Columbus at one of their high- noon functions, and he rubbed his hand apologetically across a gray stubble on his chin, as if to. indicate that he knew as well as anyone that he was badly in need of a shave. “Can any of you tell me what time it is?” he asked faintly. “My watch seems to have stopped.” Eager hands pointed out to him that it was a quarter before eight. “And the date?” he ventured. ot a few remembered that it was arch something or other, 1923. “My, my,” he murmured. “The tally-ho will have gone-if she doesn't come soon.” “If who doesn’t come soon?” ask- ed a stranger (for it was indeed he). “LT am meeting a lady here in the lobby,” the little man explained. “We were to have dinner and go to ‘The Black Crook’ afterward, but I am afraid that it is too late now. Per- haps, this being a brand-new hotel. she has been unable to find it. We usually meet at the Astor House, you see, She may be there. I guess I'l! go down and look.” He rose to his feet, but fell almost immediately. “Thirty years,” he muttered ‘as they bore him off. “That’s a long time. She has never been as late as this before.” Robert C. Benchley. Prize Money Lire’s Missing Title Contest is now on. There is $1000.00 in prise money to be distributed. If you want to.be one of the Big Four winners, see page 22. comicbooks.com