Life — April 19, 1929 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

18 by Marcu 27—Still in hospital, Baird but sufficiently over my Leonard agonies to gaze at the jour- nals for the first time in days, and I was rejoiced to find that the wedding of Mary Gold had been stopped in The Gumps, albeit I did not admit the same to my husband, he con- sidering my interest in such a series a lamentary comment on my taste and intelligence, and reminding me of Keith Preston’s lines anent Andrew Gump: Is this the face that launched a thousand strips And built the topless tower of Joe Medill? Dr. Scott to see me, remarking that to his knowledge I am the only patient who ever entered the institution bearing a package of pop corn, but in the last wild glance about, I could not bear to leave it behind, and I should probably have taken it had I been fleeing a burn- ing building. We did also speak of how highly strung temperaments, albeit pos- sibly leading lives of accented color and interest, are frequently in litle green graves when their more phlegmatic contemporaries are still sitting in arm- chairs reading Lytton Strachey’s latest book. Finally, I did confide my convic- tion that when the floor nurses peered in so frequently when my own were momentarily off duty, they were look- ing to see if I had jumped out the window, and had I the strength to quit Tennis Prayer: Look here, my man—you've run over Jones. You'll never get a smooth court if you aren’t more careful! my cot, I should hide in the bathroom and give them a good scare. Looking through my letters, finding amongst them a communication from a plastic surgeon who wishes to lift my face, but though it were as lined as a road-map, I could do nought for its reparation even were I so-minded, for Lord! when the payments for my recent medications are made, I do expect to “Will you send a small waiter in? My husband wants to make a complaint!” be standing on a corner of Forty-ninth Street tapping the pavement with my stick and proffering lead pencils to passers-by. But let me set down here and now that they will be good lead pencils, a point whereon I shall differ from similar mendicants. Marcu 28—My husband, _ poor wretch, in early to ask if he could do aught for me, nor could he believe his ears when I suggested that a good, square meal would suit me better than anything else, for last week there were hours on end when it did not seem possible that people could actually at the moment be sitting in restaurants eating the simplest viands soever, when I could not bear so much as to glance at a beaker of water. Then Dr. Scott again, telling me I must worry about nought, but albeit I have managed, un- der his advice, to put most of my major responsibilities behind me, it still frets me that some of the lovely flowers about the room must fade. I daresay, however, such an apprehension will not prove fatal to my malady, so long as there are no dear gazelles around. Marge Boothby to see me, having jus bade farewell to Lucy Ames, who is sailing around the world, and some- body had given Lucy for a steamer (Continued on Page 41) comicbooks.com