Life — September 28, 1928 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

Litre MRS. PEP’S DIAR A fire this morning in my bedroom, before which I did sit and balance my accounts with the happy result of finding that the bank does give me forty-seven dollars more than I had figured myself to pos- sess. “So now,” quoth Samuel, “I sup- pose that you will feel justified in step- ping out to spend ninety-four.”” To Jor- danville by motor to lunch with the T. D. Robinsons on melon, chicken curry, chut- September ney, vegetables and apple fritters, all ve fine, ad Mr. R. told me how he dd often fly from Washington in four hours in his amphibian named No Spirits. After- wards to call on Mistress Douglas Robin- 4 |son at Henderson House, and never again do I expect to see under one roof so much beautiful and legendary furniture, much of it antedating the ancestral patentee and making the Duncan Phyfe pieces look positively modern, to say nought of caus- ing the Tenth Commandment to fly to bits within my soul. Home betimes, so to Fernleigh to see how the charity féte was coming on, and across the Sus- quehanna lay a lovely Venetian village, sprung up almost overnight, the very sight of which did start my fect to aching almost as much as when I was in Italy, so I did sit myself in the tea garden, un- + YES, (7 CERTAMEY LOOKS USE Qaim AnD WENE BEUY HaWING ALOT’ OF WET WEATHER LATELY =) SURE Tun HOOVER GOT EUCTED ano Try may Q rd "wT A awacyr st a maacuT? Ll we, 7 Conran loons at rae Yanes GOT 6 ne One, wevee How to Size: NcE A BARBER fortunately, for when Mary Babcock bore down on me with “Baird, you're a good sport!” I did fear the worst, having learned from sad experience that when an appeal is made to my worldliness o the excellence of my sportsmanship, I am slated to get the short end of whatever project is in the wind, nor was I wrong, neither, for old Mrs. Willcox did desire me as a bridge partner, and she is the kind of player who says, “Lots of p would bid hearts on this hand, but I'm going to pass.” Did play a few rubbers with her, however, feeling like a girl scout doing her daily deed of kindness. Then back to the house, reading in Comp. ton Mackenzie's gay book, “Extraor- dinary Women,” and at dinner I did sit next a man from the South who told me how his colored cook had asked him what companionate marriage was, and when he did tell her, she quoth, “You white folks is gettin’ more like us niggers every day.” And Granger Gaither, on my other side, did confide how he often went to functions from which he had liefer stay away simply so that he should not have to listen afterwards to what hap pened. Music later, with much gen eral singing of old songs, and Jim Hyslop did give us a ballad about a lover who, learning from the doctor that his ailing sweetheart would die just about when the leaves on a tree outside her window began to fall, had equipped him- self with some twine and a ladder and made the foliage fast to the branches, whereupon Sam quoth that if she did happen to pass away according to the chirurgeon’s schedule, it would certainly be one on her beau. To this house and that throughout the evening, finally wind- ing up at the country club dance, a func- tion from which I have assiduously stayed away for many years, but Lord! I did have such a good time that it was four a. M. before they could persuade me even to think of going home. And later still, Simmy Bates, setting out alone in his canoe, did paddle and paddle till he thought himself well in the middle of the lake, when all the time he was but a few feet from shore, having failed to slip the chain which moored his craft Baird Leonard. VARIATION “Wuere ya goin’, Bill?” “I'm a-goin’ to town to secure evidence against speakeasies and gosh! how | dread it.” Many a politician who has always been wedded to his party claims this yer that it was only a companionate marriage. comicbooks.com