Life — August 30, 1923 — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

R. COOLEY got an invitation to a fancy dress ball. Being an original soul, his first impulse was to go as a Pierrot, but after much thought he decided to wear the dis- guise of a yachtsman, inasmuch as he already owned a blue serge coat, white flannel trousers and a pair of white shoes. The only missing article was the cap. Presently he thought of Hesketh, who used to belong to the Swashianka Yacht Club and who was on the point of going to Alaska to become the superintendent of a mining company. Therefore he hurried over to Hes- keth’s house, just in time to salyage the desired cap before it was packed for storage. And so he went to the ball with his wife and was a yachtsman. , Well, the cap hung in his closet all through the winter and when summer-time arrived he came upon it as he was digging around among his wif clothes, which had invaded that nook the architect had designated as a “master’s whatever that may mean. spring, and closet"— mT nh LIFE Mr. Cooley’s Cap By Rollin Kirby He placed the cap jauntily on his head and surveyed himself in the mir- ror, struck by the likeness to Lord Beatty. There were no two ways about it, the darned thing did give him an air gar- den, and as he strode down the path he flattered himself that he rolled— not too much, but with just a sug- gestion of sea-doggishness. Mrs. Cutler looked over the hedge and saw him. Knowing himself to be observed, he swung a little more into her line of vision and, with fists sunk deep into the pockets of his buttoned coat, hummed, “Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep.” Mrs, Cutler told her husband—who, in turn, told the boys in the bank— that Cooley had been seen wearing a So he wore it out into the yachting cap. Presently a lot of people knew of it and before long Cooley was say- ing, “Why, yes, I've done quite a lot of sailing at one time and another. I'm thinking of joining the Snag Harbor Yacht Club.” Having got in so far, he hurried to his friend Ranse, who was a mem- a ber of the club, and asked to be pro- posed for membership. Except for the second mortgage on his house, there was no special rea- son why he shouldn't join, and so he was elected and went over and sat on the veranda of the little and wore his cap. Now Cooley's knowledge of boats, beyond the fact that they floated, was practically nothing at all, for he had heen born in Towa. His wife began to be neglected. as did his garden. A sailor's life, he felt, gave one a certain immunity from the conventions. life—a life of spindrift and surg- ing seas—by God, the old resiless Viking spirit, once it mastered a man, knocked that sort of puttering around into a cocked hat. After a while he came to be asked hy some of his fellow-members to eo out on the Sound on Saturday after- noons. clubhouse It is a roving And once he was caught in a storm and got wet and was afraid. Being a sailor by invitation began to annoy him. He would buy a boat Finally, at considerable sacrifice, he RAIL ROAD RATES oa PROFESSIONAL POLITICIANS THE EMBATTLED FARMER comicbooks.com