Life — December 14, 1928 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

Fit to Be Tie MRS. PEP’S DIARY Novemser 20—My husband, poor wretch, who has for the past two days shut him- self in a rvom at an inn to get out of the traffic, as he says, and cure what he calls a cold, a-bawling at me over the telephone to} join him and case his convalescence, so | 1 did finally pack a portmanteau and | set forth, somewhat fearful that my ar- rival in such circumstances might cast suspicion on the legality of our union, but Lord! I had no sooner entered the | door than he did ask me to fee the bell- | boy forasmuch as he had no change him- self, and I knew there could then be no possible doubt in the mind of the man- agement. A pleasant idea, too, to be thus safe from interruption in the very heart of the town, just as John Milton was amongst the Puritans but not of them. Fortunately I have saved from my child- hood the excitement of eating in a hotel room, very pleasant when the waiters have forgotten nothing, but what most by Baird Leonard delighted me was the ice-cold water which flowed from a special tap on the basin, so that we need not be on the constant qut vive for twenty-five-cent pieces. In- deed, all would have been idyllic had not Sam been troubled because he could not identify the likeness of a portrait over his bed to one of his acquaintances, until his perplexity might have defeated the very purpose of our migration had I not turned the picture towards the wall, sing- ing the old song the while. So readin in Michael Arlen’s “Lily Christine,” in which he has gone completely pure, even to the extent of having the heroine wear spectacles, but I should dislike to think him right in his assertions that her occasional donning of them added to her lure and brought her instantancous offers of marriage, for if he be, I have been allowing my varity to cheat me these years, and should by this time have ac- quired three or four spouses instead of only one. A fine dinner of chicken zumbo, larded_ tenderloin, stuffed tomatoes, creamed potatoes and pineapple ice, and so, after a few games of Miss Milliken’s, to an early bed. Novemeer 21—Lay very late, pondering this and that, in especial how the basis of humor is incongruity, and how noth- | ing can be more incongruous than flies in late November, yet I could derive not an atom of amusement from the fly which was keeping me from slumber, but I do fear my syllogistic powers are not as strong as they should be. Then to the | publick prints, reading how so-and-so was a member of the late Czar’s household, and I do feel that if all persons so reputed were assembled, they would overflow Madison Square Garden. I do also marvel how anyone in such a terrible disaster as that of the “Vestris” could stop to take pictures of it or manage to preserve them after they were taken. Lord! it does seem to me that never again shall I so much as set foot on a ferryboat without making inquiries as to the whereabouts of the life-belts. On the telephone with Marge “Hey! Come over here with that, will ya? I got a itch in the small of me back.” comicbooks.com