Life — July 19, 1928 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

LIFe MRS. PEP’S DIARY All the news is that Governor Smith will be chosen by the Democrats on their first bal- lot, a far different business from that of four years ago _when Alabama was obliged so many times to Cast its twenty- four votes for Oscar Underwood. Elsie Blank, whose family is so St. Nicholas, Cincinnatus, etc., that it does not even recognize the existence of the current so- cial headliners, did tell me yesterday how her clan had got wind of the news that their Uncle James was intending to vote for Gov. Smith, should he be nomi- nated, and how the consternation amongst them was exceeding great, until Uncle James, attending his class reunion, was struck by lightning and died, a calamity which several of Elsie’s older relatives were inclined to regard as an act of God. This day I am much better from my malady, thank God, but still not restored to normalcy in the matter of amiability because of all the dosing I must submit to, so did deem it as good a time as any to lecture my domestic staff, so had them in and told them they must set the waste baskets nearer to my hand, and pay more heed to the recipes I clip from the jour- June nals, Katie having been so careless as to lose the formula for veal and pepper aspic which did read so delicious, and I did threaten them with the law if any of them so much as laid a finger on my own personal silk dust cloth or dared to open my workbox for any purpose, how- ever worthy. Luncheon on my chaise- longue, but no sooner was the tray nicely across my knees when the telephone a-ringing, and, not wishing to offend any- one who did give her name, I did struggle up to answer it, and Lord! it was a woman from the General Electric Company for the second time this week, and Pa fear I did speak my mind too plainly for accordance with the Golden Rule, but if the G. E. C. must employ such methods to vend its wares, I do hoy it does never sell a single icebox. Reading this night in “The Amateur Crime,” of which I had high hopes, but it did turn out to be the kind of thing in which the characters must hide their faces or cough into their kerchiefs to point what the author considered humour. June This morning a great beaker of clam juice from Mistress 27 Williams, who does sell us our fish, as graceful a gift for a con- valescent, methinks, as could be proffered at this season of the year. Then Katie in, to know if we should have the window- cleaner, whereto Sam quoth, “My God, no! Do you want it to rain again?” But the sun was shining so brightly that we paid him no heed, and I do regret to set down that no sooner was every pane nicely polished than it came on to rain, and the zeal with which I put the ser- vants at the awnings made me feel like the captain of a schooner caught in a fear- some gale. Marge Boothby to luncheon with me, of jellied gumbo, green peppers stuffed with crab meat and baked, and new sweet corn, all very fine, and she did tell me how poor Jim Mitchell, again off the water wagon and bound for Mul- doon’s, had purchased a toothbrush in the Grand Central, but had feared to reach out for it lest he drop it and had sent the porter to reclaim it. To which Hew- itt Howland quoth, when I did tell him later, “He could pick it out, but not up.” Sam home betimes, bringing along Dick Ebbridge, who is greatly cast down about having to go with his mother for several weeks to her favorite hotel in the moun- tains, and when I did quiz him as to the reasons for his dejection he replied, “Well, it’s the kind of place that has illuminated signs at the end of each cor- Proun Fatner: Yes, sir, you're going to|ridor reading simply ‘Others.’ And bear from this little fellow one of these days. | when during the discourse I did refer to|in the eye—I've been learning to swim. “I bet we'll have to broil here in the sun for an hour before he gets through.” Sam as a big cassowary, an epithet of which I am trying to break myself, he protested roundly, ‘having looked it up in the dictionary of late and found it desig- nated, amongst other classifications, as “a large bird that lives in low places.” Baird Leonard. IT DIDN'T WORK He: Say, aren’t you the fellow who told me the only way to learn anything was by beginning at the bottom? He: Y-yes. He: Well, I'm here to give you a sock comicbooks.com