Life — August 16, 1928 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

LIFE § 0 "@ U Wo Y | = nS MRS. PEP’S DIARY July Awake betimes, reading in the ublick prints, and marveling 23 cow people reputed to have lost all their money nevertheless seem to be able to manage passage on the high seas. Lord! I would I were not so bourgeois about my financial obligations and were able to owe money in ease and comfort, letting my creditors do whatever worry- ing should be done, but if my department store bills do go the slightest bit overtime, I do fancy the Messrs, Bloomingdale and Stern tossing on their cots at night won- dering why I have not come through with the payments for beige lace and flowered chintz, and when I walk through the shops, it seems as if all the salespeople were regarding me with suspicion, nor should I be surprised should an aisle man stop me and remand me to a station house. To luncheon with Meg Andrews, who told me how she had called up one of our leading bridge experts to settle a doubt- ful point at contract and had later re- ceived a bill from him for twenty-five dollars, and how a lawyer acquaintance, with whom she had informally discussed the matter, had subsequently billed her for the same amount, so the game did prove quite costly, inasmuch as she had won only fourteen dollars. M. did also tell me of an affected friend who had been to a performance of “Loff, Clown, Loff,” which did remind me of the woman who spoke of her husband as “Fronk.” A creat agony in my toe this July morning, = pos to Dr. 24 Schwartz, and albeit what he removed from my nail was so infinitesimal as to be disregarded, it did feel, whilst im- bedded, like the balustrade of the new Louvain library, and I was at some pains to credit that he could charge me but “Now, in our next ad we want to use a beautiful girl—something that'll jump right out and sock 'em in the eye.” “Come on, Show Boat! Get the hell down the river!” three dollars for working me so much relief, Then to have my face massaged, and I did draw the proprietress herself, who told me that she was to be paid twenty thousand dollars simply for mov- ing out of the quarters which she now occupies, and it was too much for me, in view of the humidity and one thing and another, so I did bifl her cease her recital, and with a rudeness which I am unaccustomed to employ. For when I think what a job it is for me to get down our curtains and send the rugs to the cleaner, with no recompense soever! Sam home betimes, with news that the clams at Sheepshead Bay have been condemned, thereby putting me in the class with the poet who never loved a dear gazelle, etc., albeit I would not credit him until he had shown me the newspaper clipping. Much talk of this and that, Sam say- ing that he would never credit me with approaching senility until I ceased wishing to attend every distant wedding for which we received an invitation, but I do still hold that the best criterion for the arrival of the lengthoning shadows is letting a bridge player look at the last turned trick without protest. Dinner at home of rack of lamb and broccoli, very fine, and reading afterwards in my _vol- umes of Thomas Hardy, lately come from Terence Holliday, I was struck by the fact that Hardy is the only writer who does not annoy me with his characters’ dialect. Baird Leonard, A REAL CHAMPION “Ts he a good salesman?” “Tl say he is. He just sold Tex Rick- ard a radio set.” comicbooks.com