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ESQU Esgurre is published quarterly by the Esquire Publishing Company, Inc. Davi A. Smart, Pr: oc TOBER 15, 1933 and Treasurer. Editorial, Circulation, Business and Production Departments, 91 orth Michi; for at Post Office at Chicago, Illinois, under the Act of March 3rd, 1879. Advertising offices, 40 East 3 States, Porto Rico, and the Phillippines, $1.50 a year in advance; in Canada, $1.00 a year extra postage.
ich, Vice-President; Alfred Smart, Secretary Vol. I No. I
“hicago, Illinois. Entry as second class matter applie1 Whole No. [ treet, New York, N. V. Subscriptions for the United
HE last word in waterprooís
—the Whiteway. one of the new U.S. Shelters, in smart eggshell white broadcloth.
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Shelters
“Shelters”, identi- fied by this label, inelude light- weights, gabar- dines, reversibles and wool flannels im many popular styles. All genu- inely waterproof.
A ї
WARNING
Do not be misled into believing that Pre-shrunk is
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your protection, buy washables identified by the words
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Saget is to cloth finishing what Ga inding 14 to Са
Big guns are trained on invisible targets. Instruments, rather than eyesight, must find the range and determine the direction that the giant projectile is to take. Without precision range finders, hitting the target is all a matter of
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What wind allowance is in range finding, shrinkage allowance is in Sanforizing. Both predetermine the mechanical adjustment that is necessary
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Most men know that a fabric that has been Sanforized is a fabric that won't shrink. But few of them know why. Ask them and they will probably say that it is because it has been “pre-shrunk.” That isn't it, at all. Pre- shrinking is just the old trial and error method of attempting, by guess and by gosh, to anticipate the results of the first few trips to the laundry. Sanforizing, on the other hand, is an exact scientific process of predetermining just how much a fabric will shrink, throughout its lifetime, and then shrinking
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Washable garments made from cotton and linen fabrics Sanforized-shrunk keep their place and stay “put” in the style, in the fit and in the value as originally inbuilt in them by their makers.
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ESQUIRE — Autumn, 1933
FIRST Eus EN JO
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to
Edited by ARNOLD GINGRICH
As for General Esquire aims to be- Content come the common
denominator of mas- culine interests—to be all things to all men. This is difficult to accomplish, all at a crack, and we would be foolish to expect to work out the formula down to the last little detail, in a first issue. One of the things that are needed, for the ultimate shaping of this magazine into what will be its final form, is a frank reaction from the readers. We won’t know how to please you in future issues unless and until you tell us what you think of the way we started out. The one test that has been applied to every feature that is in this first issue has been simply and solely: Is it inter- esting to men?” How often were we wrong? Come on, let’s have it—we’re leading with the chin.
As for Physical In page layouts, Format typographic dress,
and general make- up we have tried to allow this magazine to take on an easy natural masculine character to endow it, as it were, with a baritone voice. It would have been easier, to be frank, to follow the much fancier handling that characterizes so many of the general magazines, that are calculated to captivate the woman reader, but we thought you’d welcome a change from that, so we have con- sciously tried to avoid all fuss and feathers, in dishing up this magazine’s contents. Maybe in this matter, too, you can help us with suggestions. Is it easy to read? Do you like the page size? Enough pictures? Got any ideas?
As for the Color Pages
Once we picked up an issue of one of the hu- mor magazines contain- ing a full page cartoon in color. We for- get which one it was, or we’d be pleased to credit it, but anyway, turning to that colored cartoon was like coming upon the proverbial diamond in a coal heap. That accounts for the fact that so many of our color pages are devoted to cartoons. The use of color gives us a chance, also, to give the humorous drawings a variety of treatments that would not otherwise be possible. Some of them, we think, come very close to that ideal state of being classifiable, with equal applicability, under the heading of art as well as humor.
A Word to the We have known edi- Contributor torial staffs in which
it seemed to be a matter of pride that a bevy of assist- ants made such a formidable barrier that only a thin trickle of favored con- tributions ever penetrated to the inner editorial sanctum. We take an especial joy in applying reverse English to any such high hat policy, and herewith solemnly promise that, at least as long as Esquire remains a quarterly, every contribution will get the attention of the editor and one of the publishers. This will also serve to explain why we may take an ungodly long time in re- turning scripts and drawings. All con- tributions should be addressed to the Chicago office, 919 North Michigan Avenue.
Aq UU
THE QUAJRTERLY FOR MEN
Contents for Autumn 1933 Cover Des ngngg rey. by Edward A. Wilson ESQUIRE News Revuen. by Nat Karson
Backstage with Elf 88
Marlin off the Morro. .. Cuban Letter by Ernest Hemingway Back ‘Home in i inane Story by John Dos Passos Port of New York.......... Water Color by John Dos Passos неме Leisure: 8 Sede e 807087
5 As told to S. J. Woolf by Nicholas Murray Butler Let Me Promise You............ Story by Morley Callaghan Lost Art of Ordering. Article by Charles Hanson Towne Bellissima: 5 5 eee eren Story by William McFee Treatise on Pie. ............ Humorous Essay by George Ade August Afternoon. Story by Erskine Caldwell Stonewall and Ivy................ Story by Robert Buckner The Check-book........ Humorous Sketch by Geoffrey Kerr Grandstand..................Article by Charles W. Paddock ‘Turtle of Mme Па Cone, - 77
tise ЖАПЕ tere felis sate Humorous Sketch by George S. Chappell Albert Pastor at Home Story by Dashiell Hammett What a Married Man Should Кпо......................
ee eee Humorous Essay by Montague Glass I Am Dying, Little Egypt.......... Article by Gilbert Seldes Exit at the Morgue. ............. Poem фу Joseph Auslander Invitation to Danger. Story by Manuel Komroff There's No Repealing Tastes. . Article by Frederick Van Ryn Publicity by Cuttlebone. ..Story by David Hoadley Munroe Prodigal Son of Paris. Article by Sam Ostrowsky In the Bois.... ........Story by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Break ’Em Gentle....................Story by Dan Muller The Phantom Champs........... Article by Benny Leonard Poor Man's Night Club.......... Article by Arnold Gingrich The Art in Putting... . Article by Bobby Jones Ж Was, I Ama Sp RH nana Semi- fiction by P- 1730 Confessions of a Ghost............. Article by Joseph Hoyt Princeton Panorama........ Article by Ring W. Lardner, Jr. Africa for Actors. Article by M. G. Hubbard Alibi in a Roadhouse............. Story by Vincent Starrett The Lease of Lust............ Poem by Audrey Wurdemann Make It Funny........ Humorous Essay by Harry Hershfield
Thought for Food Article by Arthur F. Kraetzer, M. D. All in a Man's Reading..... Book Notes by James T. Farrell Overture: Poet and Pug............ Article by Gene Tunney
Joun Свотн, Art Director
The use of any person's name ın any fiction, semi- fictional articles or humorous essays is to be regarded as a coincidence and not as the responsibility of Esquire. It is never done knowingly.
COPYRIGHT 1933 BY ESQUIRE PUBLISHING CO. TITLE REG. U. S. PAT. OFF,
Publishers: Davip A. SMart W. Н. WEINTRAUB
A Magazine for It is our belief, in Men Only offering ESQUIRE to
the American male, that we are only getting around at last to a job that should have been done a long time ago—that of giving the mas- culine reader a break. The general mag- azines, in the mad scramble to increase the woman readership that seems to be so highly prized by national advertis- ers, have bent over backward in cater- ing to the special interests and tastes of the feminine audience. This has reached a point, in some of the more extreme instances, where the male reader, in looking through what purports to be a колагы. magazine, is made to feel like an intruder upon gynaecic mysteries. Oceasionally, о. are included for his special attention, but somewhat after the manner in which scraps are roared to the patient dog beneath the table.
As for Selling What we can’t figure, The Old Man for the life of us, is
why woman-reader- ship should be valued so highly as to make a step-child out of the interests of male readers. This is one magazine that is going to try to be general, but is determined to stay masculine. “Ѕе]- ing the wife" is an important job, but certainly not one that has ever suffered for the lack of help from us. We can think of a selling job, however, that has been sadly neglected, and that is the one of insurance against the destruc- tion, all too frequent, of sales argu- ments that have been received by the little woman with a glow of approval, at the first skeptical grunt from the old man.
As for the Fashion Features
Esquire aims to be, among other things, a fashion guide for men. But it never intends to become, by any possible stretch of the imagination, a primer for fops. We have been studying men, and men’s clothes, for many years, and we have come to the conclusion that the average American male has too much inherent horse sense to be bothered very much by a lot of dress rules that nobody but a gigolo could possibly find either time or inclination to observe. On the other hand, we feel that men have long since ceased to believe that there is anything effeminate or essen- tially unbusinesslike about devoting a little care and thought and study to the selection of clothes.
As for the Future The launching of Issues this magazine is an ambitious job, and already we have heard the wailing of countless Cassandras. “Why so many color pages—why so many features— how do you think you'll ever keep it up?" Well, a definite answer to the doubting Thomases is in preparation, in the shape of our second issue, which will be out December 1st. There we in- tend to show, not by promises but by erformance, that the standard estab- lished by the first issue of Esquire is meant to be a low mark rather than a high one, and that it will be not merely equaled but surpassed, in every issue from here out. For further details on this intriguing subject, and for a par- tial intimation of what is in store, see page 104.
Pictured here, out of an artist's imagination, is a fine American business office. Sumptuous and inviting as it is, however, there is nothing unusual about it—for hundreds of American business men occupy offices that are equally impressive. . . . They do not sit in offices like these out of any personal vanity, or because such fine surroundings are considered essential to their work. They simply know that the dignity of the businesses they represent cannot properly be upheld
in an ordinary, routine office setting. . . . And, for identical
reasons, a goodly portion of America’s business leaders are never seen riding in other than Cadillac cars. For they know full well that, of all those material possessions which bespeak a man's place in the general life of his community,
none is more instantly recognized than his automobile.
ew - + | cpm у mE A GENERAL MOTORS VALUE
ESQUIRE— Autumn, 1933
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BACKSTAGE WITH ESOUIRE
4 pee department is pleased to inaugurate itself with the follow- ing charming testimonial to its use- fulness, which is served up without garnishment fresh, yea, even steam- ing, as it arrived from the Village abode of Robert Buckner:
“T understand that you cannot close your forms without one of mine, the which is herewith enclosed, in graphic detail.
Ковккт BUCKNER
“Тп ease you might wish to furtner embroider your page of contributors with those fascinating little homey details which make the authors seem more like pals than mere lovers, I am appending a gripping (one p, please) paragraph, in its way a gem of under- statement, which may make the name К. Н. Buckner less of an awesome, god- like force, and more human, under- standable to the masses. So saying:
“T am a Virginian, played football at the University, to the anguish of my friends and the delight of my enemies. Studied medicine at Edin- burgh, and am a minor authority on Scotch. Have worked, not always re- spectfully, as newspaper reporter, manager of a Belgian hotel, guide to Waterloo, courier, interpreter, tennis pro, salesman, ghost writer, publicity man and advertising manager of vari- ous publishing houses. Am the first American to make a living writing English stories for English magazines, including a love-problem department for working girls under the nom-de- passion of Luella Lee. My favorite poet is O. Nash, because of the pan- ache; my favorite spot, Hetch Hetchy, Calif., because of the timbre. I love birds, children, rainbows, and oh so many things. Ата presently engaged on the long-awaited Great American Novel, to be called, Maizie, the Patrol- man’s Sweetie: or, His Beat-Route Sugar.
“There, I think that will do the trick. The accompanying photo con- veys something of the rugged indi- vidualism of Buckner the man and artist, and may indicate the solid foundation of his prose style. No mean pebble. Indeed, what a boul- der!’—London Needlework Weekly. ‘He’ll bear watching’.—Scotland Yard News.”
We were going to tell you some- thing about Mr. Buckner as a dis- covery” of ours, but now that he's practically famous, we are relieved of that necessity. Anyway, if you like Stonewall and Ivy, in this issue—and if you don’t we’re through with you, which would, in that case, make it mutual, not to say unanimous—then wait 'til you see Litile Augie and the Davis Cup, in the next issue. There’s a story. What panache and what timbre!
0
Esquire's Own News Revue, which appears on the opposite page, is the
ESQUIR Е Autumn, 1933
work of Nat Karson, a young artist whose pedigree contains that familiar formula, *by New York out of Chi- cago." If you know your Chicago art world, you know that first success, as it comes to Chicago artists, is usually computed as the accumulation of sufficient funds for the purchase of a ticket to New York. Lasting success means being able to return to the old town on the Lakefront without hav- ing to resort to the hitchhike route. Well, Nat Karson's been a big success —he maintains studios in both places, and rides the train, with a ticket, back and forth between them.
Here is a key, not that you need it, to the News Revue: Upper left, with saluting hand between the flaming uprights of the word July, General Italo Balbo, with World's Fair crowds before him and World's Fair buildings to his left. At his right, George Bern- ard Shaw, celebrating his 77th birth- day. Lower left, Wiley Post, with part of the crowds that greeted him— perhaps the part that still remember fin such is the transient fame of fly- ers. Just above, Ramsey MacDonald, with the remains of the Disarmament — or was it the Arms?—Conference. Next below, Mussolini in radio salute to Balbo. Next above, Hitler and the Bayreuth Festival under the Nazis. Center, F. D. himself and the Blue Eagle. Upper right, the Recovery that started—and that’s still the right word—in August. Right center, Irv- ing Berlin writes a new show. Next below, the polo without which Sep- tember could hardly be considered official. Next below, Primo Carnera upon whom, how suddenly, “assur- ance sits as a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire." Next below, Farley lines up another couple of Southern states for Repeal. Lower right, New York- ers duly and dutifully begin what the majority of the critics will call, for the fifth or maybe tenth successive year, the worst theatrical season in history.
We forgot something? The fellow at top center? Why, that's Esquire— about a tenth as large as life and twice as natural.
Nat Karson .
John Groth, whose work is featured on so manx of our pages, is the Art Director of Esquire. A restless experi- menter with media, he has brought to the captioned humorous drawing a variety of treatment that it has never been accorded before, at least in gen- eral magazines. One of the most in- teresting and least familiar of these treatments is the monotype, examples of which are to be found on pages 52 and 106. The evolution of a monotype isas follows. First the drawing is made in plain line. Then a glass plate is laid overit. Following the outlines of the pen drawing, which show clearly through the glass plate, the drawing
is done over again, in oils, direct on the glass. A plain piece of drawing paper is then laid on the glass, and its back is run over by a hand roller. 'The resultant impression, made upon the drawing paper by contact with the wet surface of the oil paints on the glass, is а monotype, and constitutes the finished drawing that is repro- duced in our pages.
Jonn GnorH
Mr. Groth is a young Chicagoan whose work has only recently begun to attract national attention. One- man shows have been given him, this month, in Milwaukee and in Wash- ington, the latter in the National Gallery. For one so young (he is still under twenty-five) his technical skill and mastery of media is remarkable. We predict that he will go far on the long road that lies ahead of him.
Ernest Hemingway is in Spain. His newest book, a volume of short stories, is called Winner Take Nothing. As this is written before the book's ap- pearance, we cannot list all the stories, but we can tell you that it contains at least one story, Sea-Change, that stacks up with the finest he has ever done.
For those of you who have waist- lines, we wish that Mr. Hemingway had included, in his account of marlin fishing, the fact that he lost 26 pounds during the three months he spent fish- ing the Cuban Coast.
Manuel Komroff's newest book is I, the Tiger. We can heartily recom- mend it. Mr. Komroff is the author of The Grace of Lambs, J uggler's Kiss, Coronet, and A New York Tempest. Helives in New York but is in Holly- wood at present. From there he writes: “out here they are innocent in everything but sex."
John Dos Passos is in Spain with his good friend Ernest Hemingway, having gone there after a summer spent at Antibes. Before returning to America, he will do the illustrations for Mr. Hemingway's Spanish Letter, scheduled for the next issue. While everyone has heard of Dos Passos as & writer, many may be surprised to see the evidence, on page 11, that he is also an artist. As far as we know, this is the first time that one of his drawings has been reproduced in color in a periodical, although his water colors have appeared in two books, one his own volume of travel sketches, Orient Express, the other Panama, by Blaise Cendrars, a book of poems (and pretty advanced stuff, too, we warn you) of which he was the translator as well as the illustrator. Mr. Dos Passos came to fame in 1921 with the publication of T'hree Soldiers (now available in à Modern Library
edition), although his first novel, One Man's Initiation, appeared in 1920. His best known books are Rosinante to the Road Again (1922), a volume of travel sketches and essays on Spain, A Pushcart at the Curb, poems (1922), Streets of Night, (1923), Manhattan Transfer (1925), The 42nd Parallel (1930), and 1919 (1932). The last four named are novels.
He is an author who ought to be read by everyone and could get along without being read by his admirers— we mean, that he has a tremendous following among the long haired liter- ary audience and deserves to have it among all readers of books. No one, with the possible exception of James Joyce (and you could get us into an argument on this point very easily) has had such a pronounced influence on the contemporary novel. The characteristic Dos Passos novel, ka- leidoscopie in treatment and poly- phonie in form, took shape with Man- hattan Transfer. The 42nd Parallel and 1919, while complete books in them- selves, are connected and carry the same cast of characters. A novel now in preparation carries on from the point where 1919 left off. The incident treated in Mr. Dos Passos' story in this issue forms a part of the material for this new novel. Until someone can show us conclusively that we're wrong, we lay our money, in the Great American Novel Sweepstakes, on the ultimate great book of which 42nd Parallel and 1919 form the be- ginning and middle.
JosEPH AUSLANDER
Joseph Auslander is doing a man- size job, with his new series of poems depicting New York life in its sterner aspects. We are proud and pleased to be able to present this series in the pages of Esquire. The second poem of the series, which will appear in our next issue, is Night Court. Mr. Aus- lander, who is equally well known as poet, anthologist and lecturer, lives in Manhattan.
William McFee is the author of The Harbormaster, Casuals of the Sea, etc. His newest book is No Castle in Spain.
.
George Ade is, next to Aesop, the best known* writer of fables. His, written in slang, brought him fame these many years gone.
Montague Glassis the well-known author of Potash and Perlmutter.
Gibert Seldes is the editor of the recent news-reel movie, T'his is Amer- ica. His book, T'he Seven Lively Arts, was one of the first to give the movies
*unless you want to get precious and
rong ina fellow name Fontaine. Continued on page 116
7
MARLIN OFF THE MORRO
A Cuban letter
by ERNEST HEMINGWAY
HE rooms on the northeast corner of the
Ambos Mundos hotel in Havana look out, to the north, over the old cathedral, the entrance to the harbor, and the sea, and to the east to Casablanea peninsula, the roofs of all houses in between and the width of the harbor. If you sleep with your feet toward the east, this may be against the tenets of certain religions, the sun, coming up over the Casablanea side and into your open window, will shine on your face and wake you no matter where you were the night before. If you do not choose to get up you can turn around the other way in the bed or roll over. That will not help for long because the sun will be getting stronger and the only thing to do is close the shutter.
Getting up to close the shutter you look across the harbor to the flag on the fortress and see it is straightened out toward you. You look out the north window past the Morro and see that the smooth morning sheen is rippling over and you know the trade wind is coming up early. You take a shower, pull on an old pair of khaki pants and a shirt, take the pair of moccasins that are dry, put the other pair in the window so they will be dry next night, walk to the ele- vator, ride down, get a paper at the desk, walk across the corner to the cafe and have breakfast.
There are two opposing schools about breakfast. If you knew you were not going to be into fish for two or three hours, a good big breakfast would be the thing. Maybe it is a good thing anyway but I do not want to trust it, so drink a glass of vichy, a glass of cold milk and eat a piece of Cuban bread, read the papers and walk down to the boat. I have hooked them on a full stomach in that sun and I do not want to hook any more of them that way.
We have an ice-box that runs across the stern of the boat with bait iced down on one side and beer and fruit iced on the other. The best bait for big marlin is fresh cero mackerel or kingfish of a pound to three pounds weight. The best beer is Hatuey, the best fruits, in season, are Filipino mangoes, iced pineapple, and alligator pears. Ordina- rily we eat the alligator pears for lunch with a sandwich, fixing them with pepper and salt and a freshly squeezed lime. When we run into the beach to anchor, swim and cook a hot lunch on days when fish are not run- ning you can make a French dressing for the pears, adding a little mustard. You ean get enough fine, big avocados to feed five people for fifteen cents.
The boat is the Anita, thirty-four feet long, very able in a sea, with plenty of speed for these fish, owned and skippered by Capt. Joe Russell of Key West who brought the first load of liquor that ever came into that place from Cuba and who knows more about swordfish than most Keywesters do about grunts. The other man on board is the best marlin and swordfisherman around Cuba, Carlos Gutierrez, of Zapata, 31, Havana, 54 years old, who goes Captain on a fishing smack in the winter and fishes marlin com- mercially in the summer. I met him six years ago in Dry Tortugas and first heard about the big marlin that run off Cuba from him. He ean, literally, gaff a dolphin through the head back-handed and he has studied the habits of the marlin since he first went fishing for them as a boy of twelve with his father.
As the boat leaves the San Francisco wharf, tarpon are rolling in the slip. Going out of the harbor you see more of them roll- ing near the live fish ears that are buoyed alongside the line of anchored fishing smacks.
Off the Morro in the entrance to the harbor there is a good coral bottom with about twenty fathoms of water and you pass many small boats bottom fishing for mutton fish and red snappers and jigging for mackerel and occasional kingfish. Outside the breeze freshens and as far as you can see the small boats of the marlin fishermen are scattered. They are fishing with four to six heavy hand- lines in from forty to seventy fathoms drift- ing for the fish that are travelling deep. We troll for the ones that are on the surface feeding, or travelling, or cruising fifteen or twenty fathoms down. They see the two big teasers or the baits and come up with a smash, usually going head and shoulders out of water on the strike.
Marlin travel from east to west against the current of the gulf stream. No one has ever seen them working in the other direc- tion, although the current of the gulf stream is not so stable; sometimes, just before the new moon, being quite slack and at others running strongly to the westward. But the prevailing wind is the northeast trade and when this blows the marlin come to the top and cruise with the wind, the seythe tail, a light, steely, lavender, cutting the swells as it projects and goes under; the big fish, yel- low looking in the water, swimming two or three feet under the surface, the huge pec- toral fins tucked close to the flanks, the dorsal fin down, the fish looking a round, fast-moving log in the water except for the erect curve of that slicing tail.
The heavier the current runs to the east- ward the more marlin there are; travelling along the edge of the dark, swirling current from a quarter of a mile to four miles off shore; all going in the same direction like ears along a highway. We have been fighting a fish, on days when they were running well,
Continued on page 39
The Anita in Cabanas harbor, looking out to sea. A mile off shore from here, extending four miles to eastward, is one of the best marlin grounds on the coast
ES QUIRE—Autumn, 1933
Black marlin, 12 feet, 8
inches, 468 pounds, the
biggest catch of this sea-
son, brought to gaff by E. H. in 65 minutes
Pauline Hem- ingway fighting a white marlin
Giving the left
arm а rest in
the second hour
Big black mar- lin on board the Anita
J. Н. N. Hem-
ingway with
his firstmarlin, 47 pounds
A glass of man- zanilla for one the sharks got
ESQUIRE— Autumn, 1933 9
BACK HOME IN 1919
e . . "we could stand the war. but the peace has done us in^. short story written and illustrated
by JOHN DOS PASSOS
HARLEY ANDERSON lay in his bunk in a glary red buzz: Oh T'itine . . . damn that tunelast night. His head was full of voices and ehampagny fizzle and Mrs. Johnson's long hazel eyes and her singysweet tones: the French are so much wiser. He lay flat with his eyes hot; the tongue in his mouth was thick warm sour felt.
He dragged his feet out from under the blanket and hung them over the edge of the bunk, big white feet with pink knobs on the toes. Helet them drop to the red carpet and hauled himself shakily to the porthole. He stuck his head out. Instead of the dock, fog, little greygreen waves slapping against the boat'ssealing side. At anchor. A gull sereamed above him hidden in the fog. He shivered and pulled his head in. Christ what a head.
At the basin he splashed cold water on his face and neck. Home, bygod, safe and sound, his voice croaked. Where the cold water hit him his light skin flushed pink. In the pink, it croaked again. Don’t be a damn fool, it answered hoarsely. He began to feel cold and sick and got back into his bunk and pulled the still warm covers up to his chin. The morning after, that's when you want a woman, it croaked. Can that stuff, no more French girls now. Home. (Mrs. Johnson now, with her long wise hazel eyes.) Damn that tune. He jumped up. His head and stomach throbbed in time now. He pulled out the chamberpot and leaned over it. He gagged; a little green bile came. No І don't want to puke. He got into his underclothes and the whipeord pants of his uniform and lathered his face to shave. Shaving made him feel blue. What I need's a... He rang for the steward. Bonjour m'ssieur". “Say Billy, let's have a double cognac, tootsuite.”” He buttoned his shirt carefully and put on his tunic. He looked at himself in the glass. His eyes had red rims and his face looked green under the sunburn. Suddenly he be- gan to feel sick again; a sour gagging was welling up from his stomach to his throat. God these French boats stink. A knock, the steward's frog smile and “Voila m'ssieur", the white plate slopped with a thin amber spilling out of the glass; *When do we dock?" The steward shrugged and growled “Та brume.”
Green spots were still dancing in front of his eyes as he went up the linoleum smelling companionway. Up on deck the wet fog squeezed wet against his face. He stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned into it. No- body on deck, a few trunks, steamerchairs folded and stacked. To windward every- thing was wet. Drops trickled down the brass rimmed windows of the smoking room. In every direction nothing but fog.
Next time around he met Joe Askew. Joe looked fine. His little moustache spread neat under his thin nose. His eyes were clear.
Isn't this the damnedest note, Charley? Fog."
“Rotten.”
“Got a head?”
10
“You look topnotch, Joe.“
“Sure, why not? I got the fidgets, been up since six o’clock. Damn this fog, we may be here all day.”
“Tt’s fog all right."
They took a couple of turns around the deck.
“Notice how the damn boat stinks, Joe?“
“It’s being at anchor, and the fog, stimu- lates your smellers I guess. How about breakfast?“ Charley didn't say anything for a moment then he took a deep breath and said, “АП right let's try it.”
The dining saloon smelt of onions and brass polish. The Johnsons were already at the table. Mrs. Johnson looked pale and eool. She had on a little grey hat Charley hadn't seen before, all ready to land. Paul gave Charley a sickly kind of a smile when he said hello. Charley noticed how Paul's hand was shaking when he lifted the glass of orange juiee. His lips were white.
"Anybody seen Ollie Taylor?" asked Charley.
“The major's feelin’ pretty bad I bet," said Paul giggling.
* And how are you Charley?" Mrs. John- son intoned sweetly.
“Oh I’m... I'm in the pink.”
“Liar,” said Joe Askew.
“Oh I can’t imagine," Mrs. Johnson was saying, what kept you boys up so late last night."
**We did some singing," said Joe Askew.
“Somebody I know” said Mrs. Johnson, “went to bed in his clothes.“ Her eye caught Charley’s.
Paul was changing the subject: Well we're back in God's country.”
“ОҺ I ean't imagine" eried Mrs. Johnson, “what America’s going to be like.“
Charley was bolting his wuffs avec du bakin and the coffee that tasted of bilge.
“What I'm looking forward to," Joe As- kew was saying, “1з a real American break- fast."
Grapefruit,“ said Mrs. Johnson.
“Cornflakes and eream," said Joe.
Hot corn muffins," said Mrs. Johnson.
“Fresh eggs and real Virginia ham,” said Joe.
“Wheateakes and country sausage," said Mrs. Johnson.
“Serapple,” said Joe.
“Good coffee with real cream,” said Mrs. Johnson laughingly.
“You win,” said Paul with a sickly grin as he left the table.
Charley took a last gulp of the coffee that tasted like bilge. Then he said he thought he’d go on deck to see if the immigration officers had come. Why what's the matter Charley?” He could hear Joe and Mrs. John- son laughing together as he ran up the com- panionway....
Once on deck he decided he wasn’t going to be sick. The fog had lifted a little. Astern of the Niagara he could see the shadows of other steamers at anchor, and beyond a
rounded shadow that might be land. Gulls wheeled and screamed overhead. Somewhere across the water a foghorn groaned at inter- vals. Charley walked round and round the deck. When he passed the door to the smok- ing room he could hear somebody vomiting in the men’s toilet. Through the open port- hole he caught a glimpse of Paul’s white face. He walked up forward again and leaned into the wet fog. No he wasn’t going to be sick.
Joe Askew came up behind him smoking a cigar and took him by the arm: Better walk Charley," he said. Isn't this a hell of а note? Look’s like little old New York had gotten torpedoed during thelate unpleasant- ness... І can’t see a damn thing, ean you?"
“T thought I saw some land a minute ago, but it's gone now."
*Musta been Atlantie Highlands; we're anchored off the Hook... Goddam it I want to get ashore.”
“Your wife’ll be there, won't she Joe?"
“She ought to be . . . Know anybody in New York, Charley?"
Charley shook his head. “І got a long ways to go yet before I go home... I don’t know what I'll do when I get there."
“Damn it we may be here all day," said Joe Askew.
“Joe,” said Charley, suppose we have a drink . . . one final drink.”
“They’ve closed up the damn bar."
They’d packed their bags the night before. There was nothing to do. They spent the morning playing rummy in the smoking room. Nobody could keep his mind on the game. Paul kept dropping his cards. No- body ever knew who'd taken the last trick. Charley was trying to keep his eyes off Mrs. Johnson's eyes, off the little curve of her neck where it ducked under the grey fur trimming of her dress. “І can't imagine," ske said again, What you boys found to talk about so late last night . . . I thought we'd talked about everything under heaven be- fore I went to bed."
“Oh we found topies, but mostly it eame out in the form of singing," said Joe Askew.
“T know I always miss things when I go to bed." Charley noticed Paul beside him star- ing at her with pale loving eyes. But,“ she was saying with her teasing smile, it's just too boring to sit up.”
Paul blushed, he looked as if he were going to егу; Charley wondered if Paul had thought of the same thing he'd thought of. ‘‘Well, let's see; whose deal was it?" said Joe Askew briskly.
Around noon Major Taylor eame into the smoking room. Good morning everybody. I know nobody feels worse than I do. Com- mandant says we may not dock till tomor- row morning.”
They put up the eards without finishing the hand. That's nice," said Joe Askew.
“Tt’s just as well," said Major Taylor, “Tm a wreck. The last of the harddrinking hardriding Taylors is a wreck. We could stand the war, but the peace has done us in."
Continued on page 107
ESQUIRE— Autumn, 1933
ESQUIRE— Autumn, 1933
PAINTED IN WATERCOLOR FOR ESQUIRE
PORT OF NEW YORK by JOHN DOS PASSOS
11
*“Whip-poor-will!”’
ESQUIR E—Autumn, 1933
12
THE NEW LEISURE
What it means in terms of the opportunity to learn the art of living. as told to S. J. Woolf
by NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER
NE of the most obvious objects of life is
to learn how to live. That means two things: first, that you must make life physi- eally possible by such compensated effort as will provide the necessities of physical exist- ence and comfort for yourself and those dependent on you; and second, that you will seek to find and to make opportunity to use your human eapabilities and abilities in larger and non-material ways and fash- ions, both for your own satisfaction and for the good of your kind.
We call the first work and we call the second leisure. There is a great difference between leisure and unemployment. Un- employment means an absence of the first— work—and it destroys the basis for real leisure. It merely fills up the hours of the day with anxiety and worry, and so long as work is not available leisure is impossible, because leisure is the outgrowth and accom- paniment of successful work.
Tf you are an animal you don’t have any leisure except, I suppose, the time spent in sleep, if that be leisure; but a human being has all these capabilities and possibilities and becomes increasingly human as he finds opportunity for their manifestation and en- joyment.
An immense mass of the population of the modern world has known very little of leisure. Their work, the first of these two aspects of life, has occupied most or all of their hours and what little period might have been given to leisure has really been spent in recovering from fatigue. Now we have come to a point where the interest of the intelligent mass of mankind is focused on so raising the standard of living that, first, work will be properly remunerated and systematically provided, and second, that leisure will be offered, together with indica- tion and guidance as to how it may best be used.
One of the physical characteristics of leisure is that it involves the rest and relaxa- tion of the nervous system. The strain on the nerves of a brain worker of any kind, for example, is very serious and very severe during the hours of occupation, whether they are long or short. True relaxation, therefore. should involve relaxation that
may take the form of physical exercise or games. It may take the form of light oc- eupation of some non-serious kind—work-
ES @UIRE—Autumn, 1933
ing in a garden with flowers, trees or vege- tables. It may involve the reading of books, hearing good music, or visiting great collec- tions of art and expanding the field of in- terest and activity.
Take the City of New York, for example, where one of the most significant sights is to see the crowds of people from all over the Metropolitan City and its vicinity who pour into the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History on Sundays and holidays. They are occupy- ing leisure in increasing their interest in either nature or art, instructing their chil- dren, or following up some new discovery of which they have read in the newspapers.
What is exceedingly important is that the hand worker should not only be offered leisure, but should be guided in its interest- ing and helpful use. That means outdoor interests, sports and oceupations of various kinds, as well as those which I have already mentioned as making direet appeal to the brain worker.
We need inereased emphasis on the in- tellectual guidance of our adult population. As I have pointed out a good many times, the average human being seems to reach the climax of his intellectual activity at about 23 or 24 years of age and very few individ- uals continue to grow intellectually after the age of 40. As I have said repeatedly, if one crosses the age of 40 with a rising curve of intellectual activity, he will probably go on growing for the remainder of his life. But the intellectual curve for the greater pro- portion of the population reaches the ground long before that age.
This indicates the field to be occupied by what we eall adult education. Adult educa- tion does not mean going to school or even following any very rigorous program of in-
struction. What it means is guidance from competent sources as to one’s systematic reading, as to one’s standards of judgment in art, science and literature, and as to one’s occupations in either work or leisure. The exercise of this guidance must be carefully considered. It would be foolish to offer a list of books to a man who had been toiling for six or seven hours in a mine. His natural desire would be for the open air and it would be there that he would naturally wish to seek his relaxation.
One great trouble heretofore has been
the comparatively few hours that physical workers have had for relaxation. For the most part they have cared little for anything except rest during those hours. In New York I have noticed that among the toilers the evening papers are those that are read. The reason is simple. Those men and women have just time for their coffee or milk in the morning before they rush off to work. It is only in the evening that they have time to read. This is true in all the great industrial centers. Yet it is the morning papers which give the complete details of the news. Therefore the man or woman who has not enough leisure to see the morning papers never gets а full understanding of many important events.
I was speaking recently to Mr. Anderson, direetor of the New York Publie Library, and he told me that there had been an enormous demand for books upon brewing. A change of poliey upon the part of the government which naturally had been re- ported in the papers had evoked a new interest in many people.
It goes without saying that different people are interested in different subjeets and it is most absorbing to go into a publie reading room and see what different people read. One will be looking up something in an encyclopedia, another reading German poetry, another a book on spiritualism and still another a best seller. Each is occupy- ing his leisure in the way he desires.
Some people find relaxation in the cinema. With the new leisure the cinemas will be enormously patronized, but if people go there to see the sort of thing which is so often shown now, they had better stay away and work. The cinema abroad is far ahead of ours, in respect to the material produced. I regard most of the Hollywood produe- tions as appalling and their effect on Ameri- can youth as debasing in the extreme.
More leisure for the mass of the popula- tion places a tremendous responsibility upon these cinema producers and they could be- come important agents for good. Take for instance the opportunity that is theirs for creating an interest in history. Where one person will read about Disraeli, Hamilton or Voltaire thousands will go to see George Arliss portraying them. But instead of pro- ducing pictures of this kind our cinema magnates are content to turn out cheap,
Continued on page 98 13
14
“Repent, ye sinners”
DRYPOINT BY JOHN GROTH
ESQUIRE— Autumn, 1933
LET ME PROMISE
YOU
Of lonely watching in the rain, of longing for a time gone by. of yearning for more to give
by MORLEY CALLAGHAN
AME kept on returning to the window. Standing with her short straight nose pressed against the window pane, she watched the rain falling and the sidewalk shining under the street light. In her black crepe dress with the big white nunlike collar and with her black hair drawn back tight from her narrow nervous face she looked almost boldly handsome.
Earlier in the evening it had started to snow, then it had begun to drizzle and now the rain was like a sharp sleet. As Alice stood at the window, she began to wish that the ground had been covered with an unbroken layer of fine thin snow, a white sheet that would remain undisturbed till Georgie came with his single line of footprints marking a path up to her door. Though her eyes re- mained wide open, she began to dream of a bitterly cold dry evening, of Georgie with a red searf and a tingling face bursting in on her, grinning, his arms wide open. But the wind drove the sleet steadily against the pane. Sighing, she thought, “Не won’t come in such weather. But he would if it weren’t for the weather. I can’t really expect him tonight.” So she walked away from the window and sat down.
Then her heart began to thump so slowly and heavily inside her she could hardly move, for someone was knocking. Opening the door in a rush, she cried, “Georgie, you dear boy, I’m so glad you came,” and she put out her hands to help him off with his dripping coat. In the light belted coat he looked very tall and he had a smooth round face that would never look old. The wind and the rain had left his face wet and glow- ing, but he was pouting because he was un- comfortable in his damp clothes. As he pushed his fair wavy hair back from his eyes, he said, This isn’t exactly a night for visiting." He sat down, still a bit embar- rassed by her enthusiasm, and he looked around the room as if he thought now that he had made a mistake in coming and didn’t expect to be very comfortable. It's rotten out on a night like this when it can’t make up its mind to snow or rain. Maybe you didn’t think I’d come.”
“T wanted you to come, and because I wanted it, I thought you would, I guess,” she said candidly. So many days seemed to have passed since she had been alone with Georgie that now she wanted to take his head in her hands and kiss him. But she felt too shy. A year ago, she knew, he would have been waiting anxiously for her to kiss him. “Alice,” he said suddenly.
What's bothering you, Georgie, frown- ing like that?”
“What did you want me for? You said you wanted to speak about something in particular.”
“Such curiosity. You’ll just sit there un- able to rest till you find out, I suppose," she said. She knew he was ill at ease, but she wanted to pretend to herself that he was just impatient and curious. So her pale
ESQ UIRE—Autumn, 1933
handsome face was animated by a warm secret delight as she went across the room to a chest of drawers and took out a long eard- board box which she handed to him after making alow girlish curtsy. ‘‘I hope you like it... darling," she said shyly.
What's this? What's the idea?“ Georgie said as he undid the box and pulled out the tissue paper. When he saw that she was giv- ing something to him, he became embar- rassed and almost too upset to speak, and then, because he did not want to hurt her, he tried to be full of enthusiasm, “Гога, look atit," he said. White, turtle necked sweater. If I wore that I'd look like a movie actor in his spare time. Should I put it on now, Al?” Grinning at her, he took off his coat and pulled the white sweater over his shirt. Do I look good? How about a mirror, Al?“
Alice heldthe mirror in front of him, watching him with the same gentle expres- sion of devotion all the time, and feeling within her a contentment she had hardly dared to hope for. The high necked sweater made his fair head look like a faun’s head.
“It’s pretty swell, Al,“ he said, but now that he couldn’t go on pleasing her with enthusiasm, his embarrassment increased. “You shouldn't be giving me this, AL," he said. “І didn’t figure on anything like this when you phoned me and said you wanted to see me."
“Today is your birthday, isn't it, Georgie?”
"Imagine you remembering that. You shouldn't be bothering with birthday pres- ents for me now."
“T thought you'd like the sweater," she said. “I saw it this afternoon. I knew it would look good on you."
“But why give me anything, Al?“ he said, feeling his awkwardness increasing.
“Supposing I want to?”
“You shouldn't waste your money on me."
“Supposing I have something else, too," she said teasing him.
What's the idea, Al?”
“T saw something else, something you
used to want an awfullot. Do you remem- ber? Try and guess."
“T can’t imagine," he said, but his face got red and he smiled awkwardly at being forced in this way to remember a time which only made him feel uncomfortable now when he recalled it.
Laughing huskily and showing her small even teeth because she was glad to be able to hold out something before him and tease him as she used to do, she moved lazily over to the chest of drawers, and this time took out a small leather wateh ease. “Неге you are," she said.
“What is it, let me see," he said, for he couldn't help being curious. He got up. But when he held the watch in his hand, he had to shake his head to conceal his satisfaction. "It's funny the way you knew I always wanted something like that, Al," he said. АП his life he had wanted an expensive wrist watch like this one, but had never expected. to be able to buy it, and he was so pleased now that he smiled serenely.
But after а moment he put the watch irresolutely on the table, and was too em- barrassed to speak. Walking the length of theroom he began to whistle. As she watehed him halt by the window, Aliee knew he was uneasy. “‘You’re a great girl, Al,“ he was say- ing. “I don’t know anybody like уоп.” After pausing, he added, Is it never going to stop raining? I've got to be on my way."
"You're not going now, Georgie, are you?"
Ves, I promised to see a fellow. He'll be waiting."
“Georgie, don't go. Please don't," she said, and she clenched the wet sleeve of the coat he had lifted from the chair. He was really ashamed to be going, especially if he picked up the watch from the table, but he felt if he stayed it would be like beginning everything all over again. He didn't know what to do about the watch, so he put out his hand hesitantly, knowing she was watch- ing him and picked it up.
“So you're just coming here like this and then going?” she said.
“Гуе got to."
“Have you got another girl?“
"No. Idon't want another girl."
“Yet you won'tstay alittle while with me?“
„That's over, Al. I don’t know what's the matter with you. You phoned and wanted me to drop in for a moment.”
“Tt wasn’t hard to see that you liked look- ing at the wateh more than at me," she said moodily.
“Неге, if you don't want me to take the watch, all right," he said, and with relief, he put it baek on the table, and smiled.
For а moment she stared at the case. al- most blinded by her disappointment, and hating his smile of relief, and then she cried out, *You're just trying to humiliate me. Take it out of my sight." She swung the back of her hand across the table, knocked the case to the floor and the watch against the wall where the glass broke, and trying not to ery, she clenched her fists and glared
Continued on page 86
15
THE LOST ART OF ORDERING
N the dear, dead days, when we had
Sherry’s and Delmonico’s in all their gold- en glory; when the old Cafe Martin with its glittering rooms stood near Madison Square in New York, and the jeunesse dorée of the town helter-skeltered here and there with lovely ladies on their arms, and whisked them in- to hansom cabs— those ‘‘two- wheeled heavens,” as a mid-Vic- torian poet called them—our city might have been a beautiful hell, but it was also, to most of us in our carefree youth, a glowing sub- urb of Paradise.
For we had won the foolish little Spanish-American war, and a period of peace and plenty settled down, and there were no murmurs of a world crisis, and Pro- hibition, that hydrant-headed monster, as a wit has called it, had not reared its horrid countenance. There were dreams in our hearts, and Mammon had not yet got hold
V 4 of us. We asked only for the simple pleasures which are the natural possession of youth. Life ran on leisurely wheels, we hadn’t a care in the world, for there were no income taxes to pay, there were no passports to be obtained, and we could sit at tables in grills and rathskellers, like freemen, and order from a wine-list whatever it pleased us to have served. We knew our vintages, we knew where the best food was obtain- able, and our ladies had not then become obsessed with the painful business of dieting. They knew good food, too, and relished it. Ah! how the happy hours sang \ for us; how the city shone like a n queen decked with diamonds and
pearls, and how our light laughter rang through the corridors of our eity, as we sped on our delirious way.
Down at the old Cafe Lafayette, on a Sunday evening, we would troop in strong battalions, for we knew how the French chefs were able to give us all those little superfluities of life which, as Stevenson says, make it more agreeable. Our friends would be there—the rooms would be crowded with them—and we would choose our table in the room where dominoes was played, and Henri would come and take our order for an aperitif just one, mind you, for we could not desecrate the meal to follow, and the wines
16
“Tf the tables at Rector’s could speak °??— conceivably they might say the very things said here
by CHARLES HANSON TOWNE
that would naturally be served, with a pre- liminary gulping down of several Martini cocktails.
No table d'hóte for us, in our youthful sophistication! Henri knew us, and rejoiced in our diserimination. And so, as he stood by, we studied the bill- of-fare he handed to us.
Hors d'oeuvres, yes, on those trays that would be wheeled to our table; and then а Madrelene soup, cold, if it were summer, or piping hot if the snow was falling outside; then a delicate sole, bonne femme, with its white wine sauce, and a sprinkling of truffles, which Lueullus himself would have envied; and then a casserole of chicken, with all its lavish accessories, the onions scarcely visible, but penetrating the great stone dish, singing likea Rossetti refrain that runs through the golden stanzas. And then, a salad heaped in a wooden bowl, wet and fragrant, whispering of Spring mornings, with a dressing especially pre- pared for us. Then, crêpe Suzette made at our very side, with its leaping flame of brandy over the silver dish, and a special coffee, rich and dark and full of its own perfume, with maybe a bit of Camembert, not running, but galloping in its yellow wonder to the edge of its plate.
Sherry with the fish—a ruby Amontillado that told us, as it was poured from its sweet prison, of its old Spanish dreams. A Pontet Canet with the casserole, 1864, roused from its cobwebbed slumber for our delight alone, and a pint of Krug, 1883, languishing in its
| metal bucket, turned and twisted by Henri
in its bed of ice, popping its jubilant cork when the salad eame on; and last of all, an ancient fine of Napo- leon’s day, to be sipped as we puffed our Corona-Corona, and our lady surreptitiously smoked her dainty
in those haleyon and far-distant days; but they could not smoke! Alas! now they may smoke to their heart’s content, but the old cellars from which came those dreamlike bottles, are closed to them as they are closed to us men also. Strange world, strange times. Only another manifestation of the contradictions that unhappily surround us.
I remember Alicia, who liked to lunch up-town with me ona Saturday, say, and afterwards go to a matinee at the Em- pire, where ohn Drew or Maude Adams might be performing.
She loved, on a warm Spring day, the bal- y conies at Sherry’s, which V drooped over the Avenue. v
We could see the pretty
proeession going by, but the procession could scarcely get a glimpse of us. If I were to meet her there, I would arrive ten min- utes earlier, and, knowing her tastes, would order the delicate things she preferred. An iced eanteloupe; a dainty lamb chop, with the tiniest peas surrounding it, and a dande- lion salad sprinkled with bits of egg, the yellow fragments like a shower of Danae's gold; and early strawberries, the stems still attached, dipped into powdered sugar. A pint of Chablis, the temperature of the room; and we might finish with coffee and a yellow Chartreuse, hail our hansom, and swing down to the theatre.
Supper! The word has almost gone out; for one cannot call it supping in a noisy cabaret, and there is no such thing now as that old-time phrase, “А cold bottle and a hot bird." Yet when Delmonico’s was in its flowering prime, how often we went there after the Opera, and found a table in that small, cozy room which looked over Fifth avenue, and in the rosy glow ordered our blue- points, our squab, our sparkling pint of Pol Roger, our bit of Roquefort and our demitasse; and if we felt in high spirits, we would wash it all down with a wicked pousse café, which always reminded us of a little stiek of liquid candy, sweetening an evening's end. Or was it a tiny rainbow that we drank?
There was a song of that period, “If the tables at Reetor's could speak," and more likely than not we would go to that flaming restaurant whieh punetuated the long sen- tence of Broadway, and see the men-about-
town with their chorus ladies, or the beauti- ful Lillian Russell, sitting like a perfect yel- low rose in a corner, or Della Fox, with her celebrated ‘“dip’—that curl plastered over her white fore- head which every shopgirl in town tried to imitate, but with tragic failure. Here the cham- pagne flowed like Niagara, and the orchestra gushed the strains of Strauss waltzes. Only, there was no dancing, as there is today in crowded cabarets; only lobster suppers, and the low hum of flirtations under the rosy lamps. And often, too, we would fare Continued on page 109
ESQUEIRE— Autumn, 1933
ESQUIREC— Autumn, 1933
Maybe it was something you ate, dear”
17
18
“Dear Diary—"
Е%Ф БЕ E— Autumn, 1933
BELLISSIMA
In America all the girls are beautiful blondes—day dream in bright Neapolitan sunshine
by WILLIAM McFEE
Twas the custom of Rich- ard Carola to lunch every day at the Stella D’ Italia, an upstairs restaurant in the middle of the busiest busi- ness street of Naples. He worked in the office of an Ameriean insur- anee company, but he looked very much like а young poet who was also an athlete, and he was eapable of great sentiment. He had a great liking for girls with fair hair and blue eyes, probably because he had only seen such creatures in pietures, in movies and in rapidly rolling motorears.
At the Stella D'Italia the dark Neapolitan waitresses served him with his spaghetti or ravioli, and he also had a glass of red wine from the big fiasco on the table. Then coffee, a cigarette, and a walk back to the office. There he was Signor Carola. To himself he was always Richard because his American mother, who had met his father when the latter was consul in an American city, had named him that and not Ricardo.
Very few foreigners found their way to the Stella D'Italia, which had mostly a business man’s lunch trade. Richard had sometimes thought of taking a meal at one of the big restaurants frequented by tourists, but the prices and the splendor frightened him. He wanted to improve his German and also rub up his spoken English, which had grown rusty since his mother had died. He cher- ished the hope that one day he would be able to visit America. One of the men in the office had told him that in America all the girls were beautiful blondes. His father, who was now a consul in Sweden, said that coun- try was infested with girls with yellow hair and blue eyes. But economic necessity and perhaps a natural love of his own city had led Richard Carola to stay at home and dream of an enchanted maiden.
That was how he described her to himself, because the notion of a whole country full of sirens was too much for him. He only wanted one, and somehow neither his father in Swe- den nor the facetious American friend in the office quite understood what he had in mind.
On the day of which we are speaking he had climbed the dark stairs, which smelled of food and wine, and had taken his aceus- tomed place in a eorner near a window. He had been aware of laughter and a foreign voice in the room as he came in, and he now saw а young man in a white linen suit seated by a girl in beige at the next table.
“What I say is, Europe's all right for Europeans," said the young man, and laughed at his own brilliance. “We could shoot all this Eyetalian stuff at the studio in Hollywood." He was almost spherical in shape, for he had a thiek round body, a round face and round eyes sunk in circles of flesh, and he had two chins in front and an- other one behind his fat neck. His hands were white and fat, and one finger carried a ring whose diamond was just too large to be satisfactory. And what Richard felt most
ESQUIREC-— Autumn, 1933
was his proprietary manner toward the girl in beige, who was, although Richard had never heard the expression, a platinum blonde, and had also à most charming ex- pression. She was evidently enjoying life very much indeed, and as she carried herself as though she were someone of importanee, Richard was not surprised to hear her dis- agree with her companion.
"Europe's all right for me too," she said. "T brought you up here so you could see how they live among themselves. There are only tourists at the big places.”
'The spherieal young man made a remark about it being a blamed good job too, and spoke also of what he called wop joints" not being to his taste so much.
“You are being rude," said the young lady with decision, “аз well as very silly. I sup- pose you think nothing's right outside of Hollywood Boulevard." She glanced at him for a moment. ““Ве yourself, Jake," she said erisply. She looked with unexpected sud- denness straight at Richard and smiled. Straight into his soul.
Richard, although he was not aware of it at first, was staring straight at the young lady and thinking how ineredibly she resem- bled the ideal girl of whom А he had written agreat num- ber about a thousand % really of sonnets. A pale | golden erown һе saw her |
hair beneath the eream colored turban she wore, a turban with a brilliant buckle of what he imagined were diamonds in front of it. And he began to think of her as a fair Circassian slave who had become the sultana of a fat sultan. The fat young man would have made a superb sultan of the wrong sort, Richard thought, for he was obviously just a little too rich to be satisfactory to anyone so young and romantie as Richard.
Suddenly he realized that all this time he had been staring at the lovely girl, who was eating a Neapolitan ice cream of many col- ors, and her smile made him look away at once. Had he, too, been rude? He hoped not. He wanted so much to please her and to make her think he was a gentleman as well as a poet.
“T wanted to come here again," the young lady said. This was the place I—and an- other girl—found years ago, when I was over with that college group I told you about
once. We got lost in Naples, and we liked the name ‘Stella D’Italia.’ We had lunch here. I wanted to see if it was the same.”
“Ts it?" snapped the fat young man, fixing a disapproving eye on Richard at the next table.
“Well, yes, I think it's even nicer," said the girl. She took out a cigarette and smiled on Richard. Even nicer," she repeated. The fat young man made a slight gesture towards Richard.
“Look who's here," he said in a low tone. “Valentino himself in person. Not a motion pieture. He'll eertainly know us both to swear to, Dolly. He hasn't taken his lamps off o' you since he came in."
“That’s what makes it nicer," said the young lady, glancing for а moment at her companion with a very decided expression. "You're jealous, that's all.“
“Море, not jealous," said the young man. “But I'm liable to shoo little boys away from my candy.“
“T told you not to talk like that any more, Jake," she said sharply. Vou needn't allude to me as your eandy, either. I'm rather tired of that sort of thing."
"Sez you?" said the young man, quietly.
“Үез, and there's another thing," she said, looking at him pleasantly.
"Now what?" said the fat young man.
She was holding the unlighted cigarette in her fingers, and she had no match. Suddenly Richard leaped up and struck a match for her.
“Will you permit—" he said slowly and carefully, permit the liberty?"
The fat young man looked up at Richard in complete stupefaction. But Richard looked only at the young lady, who lit her cigarette and smiled at him.
“Thanks a lot," she said, nodding and rising. I'm very much obliged to you. Do you know English?”
“Росо,” said Richard. “А very little, sig- norina. My mother, she was an American also."
“You think we are Americans?" the young lady said, while the fat young man, hovering over her, fumed.
“Yes, I think perhaps you are American. But I do not think so much of that for you. T think уоп ате a a aa " he paused awkwardly.
“What?” said the young lady. She was delighted at Richard’s nervousness and the young man’s annoyance.
“T do not remember the word in English, but we call it bellissima.”
“Why, that’s fine!“ she laughed. The young man looked at his watch.
“Time to get on to the next dump—that’s Rome," he said. “TIl get the car. Aw come on, Dolly. What you want to waste time on that freshie for?”
He's not fresh at all,“ she said. He's very nice.“ She nodded to Richard. Thanks again. And good-bye. A riverderoi. Isn't that what you say?"
The fat young man was going down the
Continued on page 77
19
,
A TREATISE ON PIE
Assorted thoughts about the only invention which nobody tries to take away from us
EARLY every | invention is just the beginning of an argument, especially if the in- ventorisa Yankee.
The school bookssay that Ful-
— ton figured out the steamboat, but after he got his little craft to chugging up and down the Hudson, up jumps an Englishman who said that he built a steamboat and operated it, years before, and he was only too sorry that all the wit- nesses who had seen him do it were dead and gone.
We have always believed that Elwood Haynes, down at Kokomo, Indiana, drove the first **horseless carriage," using gasoline as а fuel, but the Encyclopedia Britannica doesn't mention Elwood as one of the pioneers in the building of motor vehicles and gives all the credit to a flock of Europeans.
Even Edison couldn't put across one of his astounding diseoveries without having some lad with a foreign name come out of the cellar, after it was all over, to dispute the achievement and try to prove, usually by his wife, that he had been working on the Edison idea for twenty or thirty years, or praetieally all of the time when he hadn't been in the poorhouse.
I thought Ben Harney, of Louisville, in- vented ragtime, but a highbrow investigator tells me that the negroes brought it over from Africa two hundred years ago.
Many people suppose that Rudy Vallee and Morton Downey and some more of the home boys, who learn singing by training the noses instead of the vocal eords, were the original erooners, but try to tell that to a turtle dove! A “croon,” according to the dictionary, is a low, monotonous moaning sound." That describes the noise made by the doves and also what comes over the radio. It cannot be described as anything but a “moan.” It is unquestionably mo- notonous” and nothing could be lower.
How about chewing gum? The facts are that an American traveler found the Yuca- tan Indians, down in Mexico, developing their jaw muscles by chomping away on an inde- struetible **chicle," which they had scraped from trees in a jungle. He brought a lot of the stuff home with him and mixed it up with sugar and flavoring extracts and gave а large wad to his daughter, who was attend- ing high school, and within five years there was chewing gum on the under side of every chair in the United States.
Probably the only home invention which nobody is trying to take away from us is pie. The gooseberry tart of Great Britain is no contender. It is small and warped and has no lid on it. It looks more like a paper- weight than something to eat.
The home-made pie, as we know it, is not found anywhere else in the world. Americans who reside abroad cannot make genuine pie
20
by GEORGE ADE
while they are under another flag, any more than a ship’s cook can make good breakfast coffee after the ship leaves the dock. Did you ever taste good coffee on an ocean liner? Did you ever try to get hot mince pie at the Excelsior Hotel in Rome or Shepheard’s, in Cairo?
It’s funny what you сап get and can't get. A friend of mine, motoring down the New England coast, ordered steamed clams in Portland, Plymouth, Boston, Nantucket and New London. Every time he demanded steamed clams the head waiter suggested Spanish mackerel or broiled live lobster. Finally he hopped on a train and went to Omaha, and there he got all the clams he wanted.
Benighted foreigners not only do not know about real pie but they have always been in ignorance regarding its significance and grandeur. For instance, the ancient Greeks thought that “Рі” was simply a letter in the alphabet. Crossword puzzles and printing offices regard “рі” as a scramble of type. The smallest copper coin circulating in India is called a pie.“ Out in the rural districts of Great Britain a pit for the winter storage of potatoes is called a pie.“ In all the cities of the United Kingdom a pie is not a pie un- less it contains heavy dough-balls and flesh of some kind. Beefsteak pie, kidney pie and veal pie are great favorites. The famous kind served at the old Cheshire Cheese, in Lon- don, where Samuel Johnson acquired the gout, is called lark pie." Imagine cooking a lot of meadow larks and a mess of vege- tables in an earthenware dish and calling the concoction a pie“? And yet they want us to cancel the war debts!
When the Pilgrim Fathers escaped from religious tyranny and came over to New England to worship as they pleased and en- dure hardships, the first thing they did was to invent pie—not a servile imitation of any- thing in the Old World but a new and glo- rious combination, with a foundation of "shortening" and a roof of some flaky mate- rial, and a heavy filling of fruits or berries.
Whenever they had eaten too much pie, they had to go out and burn a witch. Those who were overloaded with pie often saw, during the night, withered hags riding through the air on broomsticks. These were easily identified as old women who were locally unpopular and who were so dried up that they burned very readily.
It might be said that New England pies were the very foundation stones of our Re- public. Some of them might have been used for that purpose.
Pies develop character and heart-burn. They are for heroes, not weaklings. Pie- eaters are rugged charaeters. When they make up their minds to anything their opinions eannot be altered, not even by the use of biearbonate of soda.
Norestaurant in this country ever became so ritzy that it dared to omit pies from the menu. It ean put a ball of iee eream on top
and make it a la mode but in order to sell the iee eream they have to put pie underneath.
Assorted thoughts about pie:
The captain of industry will come from а $10 banquet by the Chamber of Commerce to sniteh a wedge of apple pie from the ice box and wash it down with a tall glass of half-and-half, half milk and half cream. Atta boy!
Speaking of apple pie, dietitians suggest that the deep dish kind, floating with syrup and shot full of cinnamon, should be served on a hot water bag and garnished with digestive tablets.
The jokesmiths of the woolly nineties could not have turned a wheel if some young man wearing white pants had not gone to a picnic and sat down on a blackberry pie.
“Pecan pie" is the latest down south. One eup of chopped-up nuts, two cups of corn syrup, one eup of sugar and the yolks of three eggs. Whip up the whites of the eggs for a fluffy cap sheaf. A glass of “coke” with each slab of pie and walk out of the filling station all properly ballasted for a long motor ride.
Any one who does not go in for fresh-made country '"punkin" pie with snappy cheese should be taken to a sanitarium. By the way, any woman who pronounces it *pump- kin" doesn't know how to make it.
Pie made from dried fruit is just as satis- fying as a stepmother's kiss.
The only decorative art practiced by the Pilgrim Mothers was to punch holes in the top erust of a pie, before putting it in the oven, so as to work out the design of a bird. Anchors were favored by ladies living in sea- port towns. One of these colonial pies was discovered in a railway eating station in 1874.
One reason why no foreigner can compete with the American housewife in preparing pie erust is that he hasn't the nerve to put in a big eupful of lard to every quart of flour. He puts in water instead of lard and gets а thin, durable, non-resistant product which cannot be duplicated in this country except at the Bethlehem Steel Works, Bethlehem, Penna.
Pie is the only thing Americans like which has not been prohibited or restricted at some time or other.
Pie is so popular that people will take it, even when it is packed with rhubarb.
Comic two-reelers of the Keystone period did not depend upon scenarios. Every direc- tor ordered a gross of custard pies and then began to engage actors.
Eating pie with a fork is still regarded as a showoff in many communities, especially those which believe that all sinners will eventually be toasted on hot griddles.
There is no let-up in the demand for pies, except at speakeasies. It seems that pie erust will not dissolve in sugar alcohol.
Mince pies formerly contained so much brandy that even rich relatives became affable on Thanksgiving Day.
Fresh cherry pie and buttermilk made a
Continued on page 86
ESQUIRE —Autumn, 1933
ESQUIRE—Autumn, 1933
“Now lightly sprinkle in three teeny pinches of spice -
21
AUGUST AFTERNOON
A remarkable study of cowardice, against a setting made famous in "Tobacco Road’ and “God’s Little Aere”
by ERSKINE CALDWELL
1c GLovER awoke with the noon-day
heat ringing in his ears. He had been asleep for only half an hour, and he was get- ting ready to turn over and go back to sleep when he opened his eyes for a moment and saw Hubert’s black head over the top of his bare toes. He stretched his eyelids and held them open as long as he could.
Hubert was standing in the yard, at the edge of the porch, with a pine cone in his hand.
Vie cursed him.
The colored man raked the cone over the tops of Vie's toes and stepped back out of reach.
“What do you mean by standing there tickling me with that dad-burned cone?" Vie shouted at Hubert. “‘Is that all you can find to do? Why don’t you get out in that field and do something to those boll-weevils? They’re going to eat up every pound of cot- ton on the place if you don’t stop them.”
“I surely hated to wake you up, Mr. Vie,” Hubert said, but there's a white man out here looking for something. He won’t say what he wants, but he’s hanging around for something.”
Vie was wide awake by that time. He sat up on the quilt and pulled on his shoes with- out looking into the yard. The white sand in the yard beat the glare of the sun directly into his eyes and he could see nothing be- yond the edge of the porch. Hubert threw the pine cone under the porch and stepped aside.
“Не must be looking for trouble," Vie said. When they come around and don't say anything, and just sit, it's trouble they're looking for."
““Тһеге he is, Mr. Vie," Hubert said, nod- ding his head across the yard. “‘There he sits up against that water oak.”
Vie looked around for Willie. Willie was sitting on the top step at the other end of the porch, direetly in front of the stranger. She did not look at Vie.
“You ought to have better sense than to wake me up while I'm taking a nap. This is no time of day to be up. I've got to get a little sleep every now and then."
"Boss," Hubert said, “І wouldn't wake you up at all, not at any time, but Miss Willie just sits there high up on the steps and that white man has been out there whittling on a little stick a pretty long time without saying anything. I’ve got scared about something happening when he whit- tles that little stiek elear through, and it's just about whittled down to nothing now."
Vie glanced again at Willie, and from her he turned to stare at the stranger sitting under the water oak tree in his front yard.
The piece of wood had been shaved down to paper thinness.
Boss, Hubert said, we ain't aiming to have no trouble today, are we?"
“Which way did he come from?" Vic asked.
“Т never did see him come, Mr. Vie. I just
looked up, and there he was, sitting against that water oak whittling on a little stick. I reekon I must have been sleeping when he eame, beeause when I looked up, there he was."
Vie slid down over the quilt until his legs were hanging over the edge of the porch. Perspiration began to trickle down his neck as soon as he sat up.
Ask him what he's after, Hubert."
We ain't aiming to have no trouble to- day, are we, Mr. Vie?"
Ask him what he wants, I said."
Hubert went almost half way to the water oak tree and stopped.
"Mr. Vie says what ean he do for you, white-folks.”
The man said nothing. He did not even glance up.
Hubert came back to the porch, the whites of his eyes becoming larger with each step.
“What did he say?” Vie asked him.
“He ain’t said nothing yet, Mr. Vic. He acts like he don’t hear me at all. You'd bet- ter go talk to him, Mr. Vie. He won't give me no attention. Appears to me like he’s just sitting there looking at Miss Willie on the high step. Maybe if you was to tell her to go in the house and shut the door, he might be persuaded to give some notice to what we say to him.”
“Can’t see any sense in sending her in the house," Vie said. *I can make him talk. Hand me that stilyerd.”
“Mr. Vie, I’m trying to tell you about Miss Willie. Miss Willie’s been sitting there on that high step and he’s been looking up at her a right long time, Mr. Vie. If you won’t object to me saying so, Mr. Vie, I reckon I'd tell Miss Willie to go sit some- where else, if I was you. Miss Willie ain't got much on today, Mr. Vie. That's what I've been trying to tell you."
*Hand me that stilyerd, I said."
Hubert went to the end of the porch and brought the eotton steelyard to Vie. He stepped back out of the way.
“Boss,” Hubert said, “уе ain't aiming to have no trouble today, are we?“
Vie was getting ready to jump down into the yard when the man under the water oak reached into his pocket and pulled out an- other knife. It was about nine inches long, and both sides of the handle were covered with hairy eowhide. There was a spring- button on one end. The man pushed the but- ton with his thumb, and the blade sprang open. He began playing with both knives, throwing them up in the air and eatching them on the back of his hands.
Hubert moved to the other side of Vic.
“Mr. Vie," he said, “I ain't intending to mix in your business none, but it looks to me like you got yourself in for a mess of trou- ble when you went off and brought Miss Willie back here. It looks to me like she’s got up for a city girl, more so than a country girl."
Vie eursed him.
'm telling you, Mr. Vie, a country girl wouldn't sit on a high step in front of a man, not when she wasn't wearing nothing but that blue wrapper, anyhow.”
“Shut up," Vie said, laying the steelyard down on the quilt beside him.
The man under the water oak closed the blade of the small knife and put it into his pocket. The big cowhide-covered knife he flipped into the air and eaught easily on the back of his hand.
What's your name?“ he asked Willie.
“Willie.”
He flipped the knife again.
“What’s yours?” she asked him.
“Floyd.”
Where are you from?"
“Carolina.”
He flipped it higher, catching it under- handed.
What are you doing in Georgia?"
Don't know," he said. Just looking around."
Willie giggled, smiling at him.
Floyd got up and walked across the yard to the steps and sat down on the bottom one. He put his arm around his knees and looked up at Willie.
"You're not so bad-looking," he said. “Гуе seen lots worse looking."
“You're not so bad yourself," Willie gig- gled, resting her arms on her knees and look- ing down at him.
How about a kiss?"
*What would it be to you?"
“Not bad. I reckon I've had lots worse.”
“Well, you can't get it sitting down there."
Floyd climbed the steps on his hands and feet and sat down on the next to the top step. He leaned against Willie, putting one arm around her waist and the other over her knees. Willie slid down to the step beside him.
Boss,“ Hubert said, his lips twitching, “we ain't going to have no trouble today, are we?"
Vie cursed him.
Willie and Floyd moved down a step without loosening their embrace.
“Who is that yellow-headed sap-sucker, anyhow?” Vie said. “ГИ be dad-burned if he ain't got a lot of nerve—coming here and fooling with Willie.”
“You wouldn’t do nothing to cause trou- ble, would you, Mr. Vie? I surely don’t want to have no trouble today, Mr. Vie.”
Vie glanced at the nine-inch knife Floyd had, stuck into the step at his feet. It stood on its tip eighteen inches high, while the sun was refleeted against the bright blade and made a streak of light on Floyd's pant leg.
“Go over there and take that knife away from him and bring it here," Vie said. “Don’t be seared of him."
“Mr. Vie, I surely hate to disappoint you, but if you want that white-folk's knife, you'll just have to get it your own self. I don't aim to have myself all earved up with
Continued on page 89
ESQUIRE – Autumn, 1933
* Darling, what—kachoo—difference does age—kachoo—make anyway?"
ESQUIRE—Autumn, 1933 23
24
If you can get away tonight, I’ve got two tickets to the Folies Bergeres”
ESQUIRE— Autumn, 1933
STONEWALL AND IVY
by
EXT Sunday while you're reading the
football seores run down the list until you come to Jefferson. If the figures is 36 for Jefferson to Georgia's 0, don't blink, be- cause it won't be no misprint.
Ask Lou Little or Monk Younger or any of them coaches we've taken over the bumps this fall, and they'll all tell you we're just a one-man team. Well, that's O.K. with me. You might say Samson was just à one-man firm of house-wreckers. Come to think of it, Samson's story was a lot like Stonewall's.
“Gimme that guy Jackson,” Monk snaps at me after we'd massacred his outfit, “апа ГІІ tackle the whole Jap Army with lady- fingers.” But then Monk never did have much mercy. Personally, I ain't got a thing against the Japs.
Unless you're from the South it won't be likely you've ever heard of me. But down here everybody knows old Doe Reeves, and specially this fall I got more friends than ever. It'slike that when you're on top, sail- ing high. Now even if Carolina takes us on Thanksgiving—which they won't —I'm still satisfied. It's been a fourteen year job, but I'veshown 'em. Me and Stonewall.
Maybe I better begin when I first come here to Jefferson. Back in '19, after the war'd broke up our pro league out in Ohio, I drifted down to Virginia on a lead from old Jim Thorpe. Jefferson had wired Jim the offer but he'd already signed up with Kansas and he passed me the tip.
It might have been these quiet green lawns with the Blue Ridge Mountains rising sort of smoky in the West, or it might have been my first drink of corn, but whatever it was I knew a hour after I’d hopped off the train that if I could stay this’d be home.
And I stayed. For fourteen years now I been coaching Jeff’s football teams—good, bad, but mostly indifferent. I ain't old enough to retire yet, but when it rains my legs bother me, and this year the university give me a house, a little white cottage out on Rugby Road. That’s going to be home, the first real one I ever had, where I can sit on the back porch after supper and watch the sunset over Afton Mountain.
It'll be great to have all the boys dropping in on me there, sitting around a charred keg maybe, and playing the games over again on the kitehen table. Most of the stories won't end too good, I guess, but there's one I won't ever get tired of. One story that give me more gray hairs than all the fumbles and blocked punts in twenty years.
You see in all the time I been at Jefferson somehow I don’t ever have a great team— until this year. The boys is young, sixteen or seventeen, when they come here, and they never run much to size. We don’t have the money to pay the best players; they all go over to State and wind eight-day clocks for expenses. I just have to plug along with what I get, always hoping and praying that next September’ll bring me a pair of big
ES Q@UIR E—Autumn, 1933
A clinging vine can stop a one-man football eum unless the coach is clever
ROBERT BUCKNER
rangy tackles and a brace of ends like Jerry Dalrymple, with one good back to tote the mail. Just one.
That’s probably what I’m thinking of one night last fall when I’m walking home late from the poolroom, where we'd been having a little celebration. It’s raining and I ain’t looking up when I cross the tennis courts be- cause the first thing I know I’ve run smack into a horse. Anyway it felt like a horse. I sit there in the dark in a puddle of water, wondering what to do.
“Whoa, gal," I says soft-like.
There’s a shuffling sound and I feel I been lifted up by a derrick.
“Sorry, suh, I didn’t see yuh coming,” somebody says.
I knew one little keg hadn’t been strong enough to fuzzle my head that much, but for a minute I couldn't speak. I thought, Lord, don't let this mountain I’ve run into be a tramp from a C. & O. freight, or a drunk piano mover, or anything but а Freshman— just a plain lost Freshman, as big as I think he is. I opened my eyes and there in the dim light I first see Stonewall, all six foot five of him. I took a deep breath:
“Tf you ain't Primo Carnera or the Empire State Building," I asks, what are you?"
He laughs. “Му name’s Jackson, suh. І just got in tonight. I guess maybe I'm lost. I can’t find my way round this town ve'y well.”
I reach out and catch hold of a paw like a Smithfield ham. It could of palmed a foot- ball.
“Come on home with me, son,” I said. “My name's Doe Reeves. I live over here behind the gym. We'll find your place in the morning.”
“Gosh!” he cries. “Ате you Doe Reeves the coach?”
What's left of it.“
“Say, Doe, it may sound erazy but I been wanting to meet you ever since I can re- member!“ he says, sort of excited.
“T reckon I have too, son," I replied. “You ever play any football?”
“Just in a little jerk-water high school down in the Tidewater," he says modestly. We had a hard time getting games."
His voice booms down to me like a man beating a bass drum on top an elephant.
“T ain't surprised at that," I says.
When we get to my room and I turn on the light I see he's been carrying a small trunk in his left hand.
* * *
That was how I come to find Tayloe Din- widdie Jackson—‘“‘Stonewall the Second" to the boys. The first one must of been before my time, because I never saw a fullback any- where like him, and I've seen ’em all, prac- tically. All these stories you read about my picking him out of a Welch County coal mine and a County Fair side-show is just sports page boloney. But the reporters has mostly been friends to me so I'll let that lay.
We better skip over last year. I know I iried to hard enough. While I was losing six out of eight games and only beating Ran- dolph Macon and V. M. I. by flukes, our Freshmen team was running wild over every- thing in sight. We had ’em up in the stadium for a scrimmage once, but only once! With Santrell and Cody, a couple of wiry moun- taineer boys, on the ends, and Bucky Harris at quarter, they opened up holes that Stone- wall slammed through like the Florida Ex- press when she passes here behind time. I take one look at the wreckage to my line and eall the boy who's our manager.
Whitey,“ I says, *'serap our schedule for 33, roll it up and make pipe-cleaners out of it. Wire Yale, Harvard, Navy, Princeton, Penn and Dartmouth. If that leaves us a open date fill it in with Notre Dame.”
The news must of got out pretty fast, be- eause first thing I know I get a flock of let- ters and telegrams from our alumni asking for the low-down on Stonewall and making reservations for next year’s games. Now I’m not strong оп writing letters, but there’s one thing I like to do, and that’s keep in touch with all the boys I ever coached. It’s good business too. Well, soon my mail gets so heavy I have to ask for a secretary, and right there’s where I made my big mistake. Because the gal they sent me over from the Dean’s office has to be Ivy Rogers. Just be- tween us, did you ever know a Dean with any brains about women?
Now I'd known Ivy Rogers ever since I come to Jefferson. Her old man is the col- lege photographer and Ivy's been romping over the eampus sinee she was a baby. I remember the first time I saw her she was sitting in a boy's lap over on West Lawn, eating chocolate eake, and with her long golden hair eurled as tight as brass pipes.
She was like one of these awful kids you see in the movies, always rolling her eyes
Continued on page 92
25
26
*T don't know what calibre I should get, but my husband is about that size —”
ESQ UIRE— Autumn, 1933
THE CHECK-BOOK
A comedy of manners and of mathematics and of the strain that comes between
by GEOFFREY KERR
qu telephone rang; and Mr.
Medway, being downstairs, answered it.
Who is it?“ called Mrs. Medway, from upstairs.
"It's a Mr. Car- ruthersat yourbank."
"Say ТШ call him back.”
“He says you were promising to call him back all yesterday,” said Mr. Medway, a moment later; “апа he’s got to speak to you now.”
“Say I’m taking a bath.”
There was another short telephone con- versation.
“He says according to his records you've had seven baths since yesterday morning.”
“Well, say I'm really taking one now,” said Mrs. Medway, coming downstairs. “You talk to him for me, please, darling.”
When he finally hung up and entered the living-room, he found his wife standing in the attitude of one about to receive a сау- alry charge.
"You're overdrawn forty-three dollars and seventy-two cents," he remarked.
“T was afraid it was about that.”
“How long have you known?”
“Since yesterday morning. A thing ar- rived in the mail. And they’ve been calling up ever since.”
Why didn’t you tell me?“
“T was afraid it would worry you. And I knew you’d have to know sooner or later. I've been trying to forget about it."
“You can't forget about an overdraft.”
“No. I found that out.”
“You told me two days ago that you had about a hundred and fifty dollars in your account.”
“I thought I had.”
“Then I can’t understand how you can be overdrawn!”
“Nor can I. It must be a mistake.”
“You mean of the bank's?"
*"No—of mine.”
He groaned once or twice and then asked her if he might glance through her check- book. She shook her head.
Why not?"
“I don't want you to see it.”
“Well, of course, if there are things in it you don’t want me to see—"
“No, no, Jim, there isn’t anything in there I should mind your seeing. I just don’t want you to see it, that’s all.“
We've got to get this thing straightened out.“
"I don't think my check-book will help you. For one thing, you eouldn't possibly understand it."
“You ean explain it to ше.”
ESQUIRE—Autumn, 1933
"I'm not very good at explaining things."
He continued to in- sist and at last she gave way.
“You promise not to laugh?”
He promised.
“And you mustn't get angry either!"
She started for her desk and stopped.
“Would you like me to fix you a nice drink of some kind?"
“At this hour of the morning?”
Humming an un- easy bar or two, she opened a drawer and returned with the check-book.
His emotions on opening it were neither anger nor amusement. They were more akin to those of one beholding for the first time the original manuscript of the Koran. He fluttered the pages helplessly.
“T can’t make head or tail of it," he said.
“T told you you wouldn't be able to.”
“Сап you understand it yourself?"
“Some of it I can." She turned back to- wards the beginning. Now there's a fairly easy page."
“Are these the amounts of the checks down here?“
“Yes, that’s right. But of course the amount I put down here isn’t the same as the amount I put on the check. At least it is sometimes, but not as a гше.”
“Ts that to make it simpler?"
“Yes. You see, if it’s an amount that’s hard to do sums with—like fifty-seven dol- lars and ninety-nine cents, I put an easy amount here, like sixty-dollars.”
“Do you always put down an amount that’s bigger than the check was for?"
“Of course. Because I make money that way. Because I’m always subtracting more than I’m really taking out. So I always have more money in the bank than I think I have."
“Hence the overdraft!”
“If you're going to be sarcastic!”
He made another prom- ise. “That check there, for instanee," she said, “Чо Isobel Smythe. It was really for ninety-three dol- lars and seventy-six cents —or some absurd amount like that—so I put down a hundred.”
“Is that a hundred there?"
Nes
“You didn't add it as a hundred. You added it as ten. What's this deposit here?"
“That’s not a deposit. I think it’s the date."
“You added it in. Maybe this is where the trouble started."
He turned to another page, the most con- spicuous features on which were a large arrow and a earefully drawn and shaded moon.
“Do they mean anything?"
“Of course they do. The arrow was to re- mind me of something."
"Of what?"
“T can’t remember now. It’s something I never can remember. That’s why I put the arrow. The moon means ‘Stop and take note!”
“Of what?”
“Something to do with that check there, I expect. You don’t want to see any more, do you?”
“Has the large landscape drawing on the next page got any special significance?”
“I was waiting for a long distance call.”
“Then on the page after that you've got the word ‘mistake’ printed across the bot- tom in large letters. What does that mean?"
“Tt means there's a mistake on that page. Every time I added it up it eame out differ- ent. I couldn't make it come out the same. So I wrote the word *mistake' so I'd know there was a mistake."
He turned some more pages.
"After that there don't seem to be any amounts at all. Just dashes.”
“They mean that I did write the checks. But they were all very small ones. You know—just for a dollar or two.”
“But checks like that add up to quite a lot."
"I suppose they do, really. But I never ean see why they should."
“Ког the last two weeks you apparently haven't made any attempt to keep track of things at ай.”
Well, there didn’t seem any point—after that mistake. I mean, once you've made a mistake it's going to be wrong anyway, isn't it?"
“T don't think I ean bear any more," said Mr. Medway, as he gave her back the book. “ГІ write you a check now and you'd better take it straight down to the bank and get hold of this Mr. Carru- thers and stay with him till you get everything really straightened out. I should plan to spend the day there."
“Thank you, darling.”
He knew that she was thanking him for saying so little about it. Quiver- ing slightly with the effort the suppression had cost him, he got out his own check-book and hastily made out a check.
“Thank you, darling," she said again, as he
Continued on page 74
27
AQUATINT BY JOHN GROTH
*Get me that book on appendicitis"
ESQUIW E— Autumn, 1933
GRANDSTAND
When Champions go. they go like the one-hoss shay. all over all at once—here are reasons why
by CHARLES W. PADDOCK
T 15 hard for the layman to understand
how a champion in any sport can go to pieces all at once. Sometimes it is due to a lack of condition. But not often. The man who loses his title is generally as physically fit as his suecessor. But he is seldom as men- tally keen. Having reached the goal, he does not possess the same eager flame of desire, and the longer he stays out of the game, the more difficult it is for him to come back again.
We often get the impression that a star today, is only a shell of himself, tomorrow. In such cases, the deterioration has been so subtle and gradual that we fail to recognize it. Yet it has been going on just the same. There are no exceptions. Great athletes like Gene Tunney in boxing, Paavo Nurmi in running, Johnny Weismuller in swim- ming, Jim Thorpe in football, Babe Ruth in baseball, Helen Wills Moody and Bill Tilden in tennis and Bobby Jones in golf have either retired while still at the top or have pos- sessed the happy faeulty of being able to make perennial comebacks. This has been due to extraordinary natural ability or lack of severe competition.
Most of us in sport, however, suddenly drop from some place near the top to the bottom and stay there. It is not such a re- markable thing, when you analyze it, that a man ean wake up one morning as champion in his partieular sport, and go to bed that night with no more athletie future than a brokendown gigolo. It happens regularly. I know.
In the Amsterdam Olympie Games, I was the favorite to win the 200 meters champion- ship at 2:30 on the afternoon of August 5, 1928, but at 2:31 I was a has-been of the lowest rank. Nothing happened in that one minute to destroy, permanently, my speed, strength or natural sprinting ability. Yet I was, athletically speaking, washed up" for all time, and no one knew it any better than myself.
After some fifteen years of more or less successful competition, I had made a “‘come- back” by winning a place on the American Olympie 200 meter team. In the first day's trials, the only opponents who should have given me any trouble had either been elimi- nated or had run themselves out. I had won my first two preliminary heats with ease. My most dangerous American rival, Charles E. Borah, nephew of the famous senator from Idaho, had failed to finish better than third in the second series of trials with only two men to qualify. His opponents were Helmut Kornig of Germany and Perey Wil- liams of Canada. Borah fought so hard that he took the “edge” away from them both. That last burst of speed, which they had been saving for the finals, was expended in de- feating the American. Helmet Kornig, a frail young athlete, was so exhausted that there was little hope held out for him in the finals, while the slender Williams who had already won the hundred meters by the nar- rowest of margins was also regarded as not
ESQUIRE—Autumn, 1933
strong enough to make a showing in the semi-finals and championship races.
It appeared that I had things all my own way when the third round of trials was called. I found myself in the same heat with Williams, Walter Rangeley of Great Britain who had never been a startling performer, Jacob Schuler of Germany, Gomez Gaza of Mexico whom I had beaten in previous starts, апа Wilfred Legg of South Africa who had a badly pulled muscle which could not be expeeted to hold up for another 200 meters. All I had to do in order to qualify was to finish in the first three.
We drew numbers to determine our lanes, and the moment my fingers felt the disc, confidence completely deserted me. I had drawn an outside position on the eurve and several thoughts flashed through my mind while I dug my starting holes. I remem- bered the Olympie 200 meters at Antwerp in 1920 when I had found myself outside of Allen. Woodring of Syraeuse University. Woodring was not favored to win that race, yet he eame through in the final yards to the championship. I recalled the Olympie 200 meters at Paris in 1924 when Jack Scholz from the inside lane had beaten me in the last foot.
The lanes are always staggered in an Olympie 200 meters to allow for the turn. That is to say, the man on the pole starts about two yards behind the runner in the second lane and so on until the runner in the sixth or outside position is quite a distance in front of the first and second men. This makes each athlete run the same yardage, but it gives a strong mental advantage to the man on the inside. He has a chance to see what the competitors ahead of him are doing. He сап gauge his own pace by theirs
and make his final burst at the moment when he senses that they are beginning to weaken. The front sprinter is forced to run an entirely different kind of race. He has to start fast and go hard until he hits the home- stretch. Until then, he has no idea of his position. Sometimes he runs too fast; some- times too slow. But there is one thing cer- tain. If two sprinters of equal ability meet, the man on the inside, if he is an old hand at the game, will win.
Drawing the fifth lane in the semi-finals at Amsterdam should not have worried me. Yet what had happened in the past kept me from concentrating—destroyed my confi- dence.
The gun had no more than barked before Legg, the one runner who had started in front of me, pulled up lame. I was left to judge my own pace, and I ran too slowly around the turn, hitting the straightaway two yards behind Kornig, Williams and Rangeley. There was time left to catch them. But my mental reactions were all wrong and my legs were not driving properly. Instead of my body falling forward with each stride, helping to increase my momentum, I was already leaning backwards. I could not "gather" for the finish, and the farther we ran the worse I got. I failed to qualify for the finals. My championship hopes were blasted and with them went the incentive to try again.
An athlete fights hard to get to the top, but when he is once there, it is inevitable that he should in time start downhill. Though the descent is at first almost imper- ceptible, the farther he goes the easier it be- eomes, until before he knows it, he has lost the strength which he had developed in climbing to the heights and is the victim of
Continued on page 30
29
GRANDSTAND Continued from page 29 the first real contender who happens along.
'The champion who has been beaten loses, together with his incentive, confidence in himself. Generally he is vastly affected by what others think or say. This is true of track and field champions, and I am sure the stars of other sports are similarly affected.
Ted Meredith of Pennsylvania Univer- sity, the greatest middle distance runner of all time, until the recent arrival of Big Ben Eastman of Stanford, went out like a light. There was no warning that he had perma- nently slipped. For years he had lost races only to come back later with still more re- markable victories. As a Mercersberg school boy he had gone to Stockholm in 1912 as a member of the American Olympic team. He returned home with the championship of the world in the 800 meters.
During a part of his college career at Penn he did not run so well, but in 1916 he broke the world’s records in both the quarter and the half mile at the Intercollegiate cham- pionships within an hour, while in 1917 be- fore entering service he displayed dazzling speed, indoors.
In 1920, he appeared to be the same great champion in our Final Olympic Tryouts and won the right to compete in the 400 meters at Antwerp. But after he had qualified for the semi-finals he lost heart. He thought that his legs could not stand up under two more races and he faded out of the athletic picture for all time, losing to his team-mate Frank Shea, to George Butler of Great Britain and to Dafel of South Africa, all of whom were beaten in the finals.
Morris Kirksey of Stanford University, whom I have always considered as the hard- est man to beat I ever faced, lost his speed overnight. Kirksey, as a high school star, had things too easy. There were no runners with his ability in competition at the time and he won as he pleased. During the form- ative years his muscles were not stretched, with the result that when he later faced opponents of his own calibre, they could not stand up under the strain. His great courage and his strong recuperative powers however, kept him in the running and he led the 1920 Olympic 100 meter race to within a yard of the finish. Our battles were always so close that they inspired the Stanford star to greater and greater efforts. Instead of being downeast by defeat, he fought all the harder. And that kind of a competitor is the most difficult to beat.
Kirksey, after years of climbing, at last reached the top. There were no college sprinters in his class. But the moment that this great fighter realized that he was with- out serious competition, he went completely to pieces and never ran another good race. Being champion sometimes does strange things. For years he had occupied the posi- tion of having everything to win and noth- thing to lose.
Though there was little of the grandstander about Morris Kirk- sey, he nevertheless had come to de- pend upon its support. An Amer- ican crowd is the most fickle in the world. It loves a champion, but it adores a game under-dog. Kirksey had been the latter, but the mo- ment he was the favorite, the crowd turned against him and though he said that he did not mind what peo- ple thought or how they acted, he was unconsciously influenced by their desertion and cracked over- night.
A word dropped at the psycho- logical moment also has its part to
30
The first good boy who happens along...
play in the making and breaking of cham- pions. For eight years, representatives of the negro race won our national broad jump championship. Sol Butler of Dubuque Col- lege in Iowa took the title in 1920. He had previously won the Inter-Allied Games championship in 1919. Ned Gourdin of Harvard University won in 1921. Then a dark-skinned, keen-witted, cocky young fel- low from Cincinnati, named DeHart Hub- bard, commenced to show his wares. For six seasons he held his throne, winning along with the American title, the Olympic cham- pionship at Paris, and breaking the world’s record. He seemed able to jump more than 25 feet, any time out, while the rest of the stars were struggling along a full foot behind. Hubbard had everything to himself and he was not bashful about admitting his superiority. He boasted of his prowess so much that every jumper in the country was aching to royally trim him while spectators wherever he went, were ready to sealp him. Though outrageously self-confident, De- Hart Hubbard was game. In fact, he loved having the crowd badger him and the louder they shrieked the farther he jumped. Hubbard was counted upon to successfully defend his Olympie championship at Am- sterdam. He went to the Final Tryouts at Cambridge, Massachusetts with the following incomparable record of six successive cham-
pionships: TOD ana 24 ft. 514 inches 1928 sees 24 ft. 734 inches 1924 24 ft. 1925... 25 ft. 436 inches 1926... 25 ft. 214 inches 1927.. 25 ft. 834 inches
Just before the event was held, Eddie Hamm, a handsome, sleepy Southerner,
... sends him hurtling down the hill to oblivion
born in Arkansas and schooled at Georgia Tech, drawled to Hubbard: “Му father told me that if I came to Boston and was beaten by any gentleman of color, I needn't come home any more, so I guess I'll just naturally have to skin you and your boy friend, Ed Gordon." 'The latter was a long, lithe negro from Iowa University who had also been jumping close to 25 feet.
DeHart Hubbard who had met and de- feated all challengers for a half dozen years, couldn’t get Hamm’s statement out of his mind, or the glint of Eddie’s steel-blue eyes when he made it, and for the first time in a national championship he failed to clear 24 feet, jumping 23 ft. 1114 inches, while Gor- don's best effort was 23 ft. 634 inches. As for the Georgia Tech champion, he proceeded to leap 25 feet, 1114 inches to a new national and world’s record, defeating the greatest broad jumper of all time by almost a foot.
Hubbard still had a chance to redeem him- self. As a member of the American team he could even the count and regain his lost laurels by successfully defending his Olym- pic crown at Amsterdam. Going over on the boat, he tried to talk in his old jaunty man- ner and boasted that there would be nothing to it when he reached Europe.
Hamm did not say very much. We shared the same room on the boat before the Games and from the way that Eddie acted, I felt reasonably certain that what he had said about the broad jump at Cambridge went double for Amsterdam. And I think that Hubbard realized it himself.
When the Olympic event ended, Eddie Hamm had established a new Olympic гес- ord of 25 ft. 434 inches, beating a negro boy, S. P. Caytor of Haiti, who was later to set a new world’s mark, while DeHart Hubbard and hisfriend, Ed Gordon, both failed to place.
Eddie Hamm had achieved his ambition. He went back to the South and soon dropped out of the competitive picture. He tried once or twice to reach his Olympic form and failed. The incentive was no longer present.
There is all the difference in the world be- tween climbing to the top of the heap and in staying there after you have once arrived. Pride, and sometimes money and position, force an athlete to fight desperately against all challengers. But these characteristics are not in themselves strong enough to over- throw the spirit of youth backed by great natural ability.
No finer illustration of the futility of try- ing to stay at the top too long can be pic- tured than the story of Jack Dempsey at Philadelphia. He told me after his fight with James Joseph Tunney that he knew in the eighth round of that battle that he could not win. Time and again he hit Gene with everything he had and Tunney always came back for more until Jack was sure that he could not knock Tunney out. He was also equally certain that he had been out-pointed and out-boxed to such an extent that even if he should win the eighth, the ninth and the tenth rounds nevertheless he would still lose the championship of the world.
It would have been relatively easy under those circumstances for Dempsey to have taken one of Tun- ney's blows a little bit harder than it aetually eame and to have been counted out. By doing so he felt that he might have saved himself for a return match. But the code of a champion is to fight to the finish. And Dempsey that night at Phila- delphia was still a champion. He stayed on his feet.
Physically, Dempsey was badly battered and bruised. But in time
Continued on page 74
ESQ UIRE—Autumn, 1933
ESQUIREC— Autumn, 1933
“Look, can you do this?"
31
THE TURTLE OF MME. LA CONCIERGE
A Paris chapter, concerning Victor, the Baptist turtle, from a novel in preparation
by GEORGE S. CHAPPELL
А OU have not heard the story of the turtle of Mme. la Concierge, Milor? . . nor, you, Vilainguele?“
It was Jean-Paul who spoke. His сош- rades, Jim Milor and Willingale, shook their heads.
“Bon, I will tell it to you, for it was a famous blague. It happened last year, in the Spring. Mme. la Concierge had a turtle. You know what it is, a turtle? two pieces of shell which swim?
Bon. She kept it in a glass bowl in her little boite, therein the court. She is a good woman, Mme. la Concierge, but bete! ... you have no idea... bete comme la lune!"
He made a round face so ex- actly like Mme. la Concierge that his listeners burst out laughing.
“Our bonneislike that,” Jimsaid.
“Do not interrupt, Milor. It is very impolite.
“You have been badly brought- up. Eh bien, Mme. la Concierge had a turtle, it is understood? On fine days, as the weather ameli- orated itself, she used to set the bowl in the court. She called the turtle Victor after her husband who drives an omnibus. The fresh air would be good for Victor, she said. The sun would tap his little system." Fervent love for turtles shone from the speaker’s face.
We all admired Victor greatly .. but he was so small! . . . no bigger than a sou, a sow which swims. I decided to occupy my- self with him. The comrade Blanchecotte would aid me. V'la un type, Blanchecotte!"
They nodded their agreement.
We consulted with Madame.
Victor was beautiful, we said.
What was his sex? Madame did
not know. She had examined in
vain. Her eyes were bad and
Victor was so small . . . how
eould she tell? Blanchecotte
would tell her. He knew all about
turtles, and he would bring his magnifying glass. He brought his magnify- ing glass. It was a diminishing glass really, with which he examined Victor carefully. Yes, he said, Vietor was a boy; Madam had guessed right. She was enchanted.
“But bon-Dieu, he was so small, this Vic- tor... he grows not at all. ‘I know,’ she said, and yet I feed him, me myself, every day. He eats like three, le p'tit gourmand, yet he stays as you see him, a little end of nothing! “Оп what do you feed him?' we asked. “Оп a minee of the red meat! she said, “апа some little grains which I buy at the bird market.’
“Blanchecotte was superb. Quel type, nom de Dieu,” for a moment Jean-Paul writhed silently . . . ‘Oh Madame,’ he said, ‘a mince of the red meat! It is the worst thing you
32
could give him. You are going to kill Victor. He should have meat but once a week, on Friday. Turtles are not Catholies, Madame. For the rest, give him only shredded carrots and parsley, chopped very fine. He must be fed at noon precisely. You will see.”
lt is the truth,’ I told her. ‘My aunt who lives in Montrouge has a turtle as big as a platter who lives uniquely on parsley."
“ Воп et bon, Victor should have his shred- ded carrots and his chopped parsley. Every day at noon precisely he was served like a king. The effect was a marvel. Three days after he was larger by half his diameter. 'It was a miracle,’ Madame said; ‘Victor grows like a tree! See, Messieurs, how strong he is, my littlelove! Regard how heswims! Even his shell is more brilliant. It shines like a comb.’
“A week later it was necessary to buy a larger bowl. The turtle of Mme. la Concierge began to be talked about. The postman told the baker, the baker told the butcher, and so on. At all hours the court was frequented. Victor was a hero. His longitudinal grandeur was now nine inchesand still hegrew. Oneday he bit Madame. ‘See,’ she said, showing her finger, ‘Victor has bitten me; he is a man.’
“The pig of a postman almost spoiled everything.
There is something here, Madame, which we do not understand,’ he said. But the stupidity of Madame triumphed. The bowl was changed for a tub. Victor was now as large as the turtle of my aunt who lives in Montrouge.
“Therearelimits, myfriends, even to turtles. It was Grenier, whose father keeps a restaurant on the Boule- vard Raspail, who said, ‘This last turtle is the largest I can get. Messieurs, la comedia est finita. Meanwhile we have all these others swimming about in our water-tank.’ ‘Butno’ said Blanche- cotte, ‘I have a better idea.’
“The idea of Blanchecotte was magnificent. It took a little time of course but it was worth it... you shall see. A few days later Madame was in tears. ‘He grows small, mon low lou,’ she said; ‘what is happening? Every day he eats his shredded carrots and his chopped parsley, yet he les- sens!’ ‘Do you give him his meat on Friday?’ I asked. Madame was embarrassed. Last week she did not give him his meat on Fri- day. She had thought of Father André and of her sister, Clemen- tine, who is a religieuse. She had given Vietora little button of sole, garnished with parsley. It was fatal, we told her. Vietor was a Baptist. Already he had been baptised in his native element. Baptists live in tanks. She had not by any chance had the water blessed by Father André? No? .. it was fortunate. Turtles died in holy-water. As it was, Victor wasshrinkingasa matter of princi- ple. There was nothing to be done.
“So it proved, Messieurs. Im- agine,if you please,theexeitement in the Quarter, the talk, the noise! If a turtle who grew by leaps and bounds was a sensation, what was
a turtle who lessened visibly, before the eyes! A reporter came. There was a feuilleton in the Matin about it, ‘The Turtle of Mme. la Concierge,’ which Madame cut out with her scissors although she can not read. Soon Victor had returned to his original dimen- sions. He was agile; he carried himself well. ‘I never loved you so much, my little cab- bage, Madame said, *when you were big.' Une belle blague, hein?"
Willingdale, throwing back his head like a hound, barked suddenly.
“Did she discover what happened?" Jim asked.
“Happily . . . no." Quiet mirth flickered across Jean-Paul's aseetie features as he added seriously. When one is stupid, my friends, it is for a long time...”
ESQUIRE— Autumn, 1933
ES QUIRE—Autumn, 1933
Seen Со rM
ALBERT PASTOR AT HOME
It's hard on the racketeers when a big guy called Lefty
yearns to see his home town
by DASHIELL HAMMETT
EFTY comes in and drops his suitcase and kicks the door shut and says, "How's it, kid?”
I get up to shake hands with him and say, "How's it, Lefty?“ and see he has got a goog or black eye that is maybe a week old and some new skin growing in alongside his jaw. I am too polite to stare at these things. I ask, Well, how’d you find the old home town?”
“T just looked behind the railroad depot and there it was," he reples jokingly. “1з there anything in the bottom drawer?”
There is a bottle of Scotch in the bottom drawer. Lefty says it is not good Scotch be- cause he does not want anybody to think he can be fooled by stuff that is made in this country, but he drinks it in a way that would not hurt the feelings of the man that made it in any country.
He unbuttons his vest and says, ‘‘Kid, I’m here to tell you it was one swell visit. This big city stuff is all oke, but when you go back to the place you was born and the kids you run around with and your family and—Say, kid, I got a kid brother that ain’t eighteen yet and you ought to see him. Big as me except for weight and a couple inches of height and can he throw hands. When we put the gloves on down the cellar mornings—what a kid, kid! Even when I was in shape I would’ve had trouble holding him. You ought to see him, kid.”
I think that it will be all right to refer to those things on Lefty’s face now, so I say, "I'd like to. Why don’t you bring him on? Any boy that can get to your ponem like that ought—”
Lefty puts a hand to the eye that is not in as good shape as the other one and says, “That ain’t his. That’s—’’ He laughs and takes his hand away from his eyes and takes a jewelry box out of his coat pocket and passes it to me. ““ТаКе a look at that.”
In the box there is a watch that looks like platinum attached to a chain that looks like platinum. I think they are.
Lefty says, Read what's on it."
On the back of the watch it says T'o Albert Pastor (which is the way Lefty writes his name when he has to) with the gratitude of the members of the Grocers’ Protective Associa- tion.
Grocers' Protective Association," I say slowly, “that sounds like—"
“А racket!” he finishes for me and laughs and bangs my desk with his hand. “Са! me a liar if you want, but back there in my home town, this little burg that ain’t got a quarter million people in it—but get me right, a swell little burg just the same—they got racketeers!“
I would not want to call Lefty a liar even if I thought he was a liar because he would have been heavyweight champion of the world before he left the ring to go in busi- ness with me if they did not have rules you are supposed to fight by in the ring and if he did not have a temper which kept him
34
forgetting they had rules you were supposed to fight by. So I say, "Is that so?" Lefty says that is so. He says, “You
could’ve knocked me over with the District Attorney’s office. Big city stuff back there! Ain’t that a howl? And my old man being
shook down along with the rest of them.” He reaches for the bottle of Scotch that he says is not good.
“Your old man is a grocer?” I ask.
“Uh-huh, and he always wanted me to follow in his own footsteps," Lefty says, “and that’s the real reason he didn’t have no use for my fistic career. But that’s all right now—now that I retired from the arena. He’s a swell old guy when you’re old enough to understand him and we got along fine. I give him a sedan and you’d ought to see the way he carries on about it. You'd think it was a Dusenberg.”
“Was it?" I ask.
Lefty says, No, but you'd think it was a Rolls the way he carries on about it. Well, I'm there a couple days and he lets off about these bums that'd been lining up the grocers round town—join the protective association or else, with not many takers for the else. It seems the grocer business ain't none too good by its own self and paying alimony to these mugs don't help it none. The old man's kind of worried.
“Т don’t say nothing to him, but I go off by myself and do some thinking and I think, what's the matter with me going to see these babies and ask them do they want to listen to reason or have I got to go to work on them? I can’t see nothing wrong with that idea. Can you?"
No, Lefty,“ I say, “I can’t.”
Well, neither could I," Lefty says, “апа so I did and they don't think they want to listen to reason. There's a pair of them in the protective association office when I come in—just about what I expected—they know the words, but they ain’t got the motions right yet. There was a third one come in after awhile, but I’m sweating good by that time and handy pieces has been broke off some of the furniture, so I make out all right, and the old man and some of the others get together and buy me this souper with some of the dues they’d’ve had to pay next month if there’d been any protective association left."
Не puts the watch and chain back in the bex and earefully puts the box back in his pocket. “Апа how’s your father’s horse?" he asks.
I take the envelope with the money in it out of my pocket and give it to him. There's your end," I say, "only Caresse’s not in. You know—the little fat guy around on Third avenue.”
“I know him," Lefty says. What's the matter with him?"
“Не says he's paid so much for protection now that he's got nothing left to protect," Isay, “апа he won't stand for the boost."
Lefty says, So?“ He says, That's the way, soon's I get out of town these babies think they ean eut up." He stands up and buttons his vest. Well,“ he says, “І guess ГЇЇ go round to see that baby and ask him does he want to listen to reason or have I got to go to work on him?"
ESQUIRE-—Autumn, 1933
“Yeah, and then after he insulted you, what else did he do?"
ESQUIR E —Autumn, 1933
35
36
JAN GA
“Sweetheart, Гое walked him round the block three times, but he doesn’t seem to realize—"
ESQUIRE—Autumn, 1933
WHAT A MARRIED MAN SHOULD KNOW
About doing the marketing and getting his own breakfast and
ducking all trouble in general
by MONTAGUE GLASS
AKING
the United States by and large,there are two kinds of married men: those who are seared of their wives and those who lie about it. I have belonged to both classes for twenty-six years, and therefore feel competent to ex- press an opinion either way, which is not often the case in advisory articles, for if you have read such warnings to potential erim- inals as You Cant Win, you may have noticed that the book was written by a prison warden, who had never himself been а convict. It is as though a married woman were to write this present piece, in which ease it would become a manual of behavior for married men in and about the house, from the viewpoint of a good housekeeper, a good mother and a good disciplinarian, combined. The only effect would be to hand out counsels of perfection, and leave you no wiser than you are at present, whereas the intention is to show you not Aow to behave, but how not to behave, and get away with it.
Let us employ the ease system, as they say in law school, and start right in with breakfast. A married woman approaches the eooking of breakfast in so haphazard a style, that the very carelessness of the thing almost evokes complaint from the husband. Any job so effortless—apparently—is bound to be poor, the husband argues to himself, and in a moment of unusual courage, he may even grumble about the crispness of the bacon, the quality of the coffee and the perfection of the toast. He doesn’t know it, but he is in the position of a police court reporter, being pressed into emergency serv- ice as a musie eritie and writing a notice about the playing of some such virtuosi as Mischa Elman and Fritz Kreisler. The whole performance looks so easy that he is goaded into adverse criticism almost as a matter of principle.
Don’t kid yourself, Mr. Married Man. Some morning, your wife will wake up with a sick headache, and will ask you to stop off at a lunch counter and get your breakfast, and then with eggs, bacon, sliced bread, coffee and grapefruit in the house, you will put into practice a theory you have always held that there is no system, no forcefulness about the way your wife cooks breakfast. You believe that when your wife cooks breakfast, she's just improvising a tech- nique—that’s all, and that the result is more a matter of luck than planning.
Now listen! While there’s still time, take my advice and get your breakfast in а lunchroom, because first of all, if you try to
Tarh uda
ЕЅФ UIRE-— Autumn, 1933
соок that breakfast yourself, you'll find out that in frying a couple of eggs, it isn't luck which keeps the eggs from running up a mar- ried woman's sleeve or breaking on the edge of the frying pan and messing up the gas stove. It's skill and neeromaney combined, and you're no magician. Maybe when you got married, you promised to endow your wife with all your worldly goods, but you didn't agree to juggle eggs, did you?
Then again, there are the toast, the bacon and the coffee, all of them subject to that law which is ealled the Total Depravity of Inanimate Things, and when eggs, bacon, coffee and toast are acting in concert, think what as a novice, you are up against. Easy, is it? Why, all you have to do is to exercise the watehfulness of an animal tamer in a successful eireus performance and the alert- ness of a captain on the bridge of an Atlantic liner; and then combine them both with the duties of a locomotive engineer on the look- out for signals.
In brief, cooking the standard American breakfast means not only the management of a couple of slippery eggs, but also keep- ing an eye on the coffee so that it will not boil over, and at the same time, vigilantly supervising the electric toaster, for when it comes to destroying the peace and happiness of a household, and making a mock of mar- riage vows, the behavior of the average husband with an electric toaster has nothing on his behavior with six dancers of the Van- ities of 1935.
You can get more excuse me hell from your wife by toasting two slices of bread in an electric toaster than if you stayed up until seven in the morning trying to break
CaN Jat a
even at a game of quarter limit, and your method of stirring up anger may be inno- сепсе itself, for after all, what have you done to deserve it? Figure it out for your- self. You first insert two slices of bread in the toaster and then go to the hail door to pick up the morning papers, but by the time you skim the headlines on the front page, the toaster in the dining room will have played the usual dirty trick on you. That is to say, it will have converted two sliees of bread into earbon and then will have become a sort of unprotected coke oven, blackening the ceiling with smoke and making a smell that persists in your house for twenty-four hours.
'Therefore, by all means, go to а lunch room and buy your breakfast, because the type of toaster they use in lunchrooms is automatie, and for all I know to the con- trary, there may be improvements waiting only on better times, by which when the eonflagration starts, the toaster will ring а gong, show a red light and consume its own smoke. But,“ you protest, “can’t I just make myself some coffee and let it go at that?" You ean try to make yourself some coffee, but with lunchrooms and drug stores serving hot coffee with free repeat orders, i. e. all the coffee you can drink for five or ten cents—if you make your own coffee, you are not only neglecting a splendid op- portunity to get coffee heart, practically gratis, but you are also in for a big disap- pointment. You have seen your wife make coffee, of course, and she has done it in what to you seems such a slipshod fashion that you have been astonished at the fra- grant result. So you therefore imagine that by carefully following the directions printed on the can, you will turn out a pot of coffee which ас- eording to the adver- tisement will 3 beofsur- passing fla-
vor and aroma. You will
find out, however, that as far as a married man is con- cerned, the advertiser has his adjectives mixed. In- stead of surpassing, the advertisement ought to have read in your case, surprising or even amazing, because even though the instructions on the сап give you three or four methods of making what the manufac- turer in his ignorance of married men, calls a delicious and fragrant mixture, all you will succeed in producing will be a quart of hot fluid, which by any reasonable standard of taste, flavor and color, contains in sus- pension and not in solution, the scrapings of old briar pipes, blended with lamp blaek, dried shoe polish and burnt matches. Then in ycur ignoranee, you will pour out a eup of this mixture, carry it to your wife and teil her that nothing is better for a sick headache than a eup of strong, black coffee. Certain stretehes of the Mississippi River are also strong and black, but people who live on its banks, generally use aspirin. So my advice is to pour the whole potful down the sink, give your wife some aspirin and get your breakfast in a lunehwagon, because any married woman handicapped by a sick headache, is more than a conversational match for her husband, even though he may be in perfect health and a good after- dinner speaker to boot.
Continued on page 80
27
———
“But momma I told you to tell the groceryman that Га pay him right after the revolution —“
ат. 1933
ESQUIRE— Autun
MARLIN OFF THE MORRO Continued from page 8
and seen six others pass close to the boat during a space of half an hour.
As an indication of how plentiful they are, the official report from the Havana markets from the middle of Mareh to the 18th of July of this year showed eleven thousand small marlin and one hundred and fifty large marlin were brought into the market by the eommereial fishermen of Santa Cruz del Norte, Jaruco, Guanabo, Cojimar, Habana, Chorrera, Marianao, Jaimanitas, Baracoa, Banes, Mariel and Cabanas. Marlin are eaught at Matanzas and Cardenas to the east and at Bahia Honda to the west of the towns mentioned but those fish are not shipped to Havana. The big fish had only been running two weeks when this report was compiled.
Fishing with rod and reel from the middle of April through the 18th of July of this season we caught fifty-two marlin and two sailfish. The largest black marlin was 468 pounds, and 12 feet 8 inches long. The larg- est striped marlin was 343 pounds and 10 feet five inches. The biggest white marlin weighed 87 pounds and was 7 feet 8 inches in length.
The white marlin run first in April and May, then come the immature striped mar- lin with brilliant stripes which fade after the fish dies. These are most plentiful in May and run into June. Then come the black and striped marlin together. The biggest run of striped marlin is in July and as they get searee the very big black marlin come through until into September and later. Just before the striped marlin are due to run the smaller marlin drop off altogether and it seems, except for an occasional school of small tuna and bonito, as though the gulf stream were empty. There are so many color variations, some of them caused by feed, others by age, others by the depth of water, in these marlin that anyone seeking noto- riety for himself by naming new species could have a field day along the north Cuba coast. For me they are all color and sexual variations of the same fish. This is too com- plicated a theory to go into a letter.
The marlin hit a trolled bait in four differ- ent ways. First, with hunger, again with anger, then simply playfully, last with in- difference. Anyone сап hook a hungry fish who gives him enough line, doesn’t back- lash and sets the hook hard enough. What happens then is something else. The main thing is to loosen your drag quickly enough when he starts to jump and make his run, and get the boat after him as he heads out to sea. The hungry marlin smashes at the bait with bill, shoulders, top fin and tail out. If he gets one bait he will turn and charge the other. If you pull the bait out of his mouth he will come for it again as long as there is any bait on the hook.
The angry fish puzzled us for a long time. He would come from below and hit the bait with a smash like a bomb exploding in the water. But as you slacked line to him he had dropped it. Serew down on the drag and raee the bait in and he would slam it again without taking it. There is no way to hook a fish aeting that way except to strike hard as he smashes. Put the drag on, speed up the boat and sock him as he crashes it. He slams the bait to kill it as long as it seems to be alive.
The playful marlin, probably one who has fed well, will come behind a bait with his fin high, shove his bill elear out of water and take the bait lightly between his bill and pointed lower jaw. When you turn it loose to him he drops it. I am speaking of abso-
Continued on page 97
ESQUIB Е — 4utumn, 1933
Six of seven white marlin taken by one rod in a single
Small white marlin showing spread of fins
Tired small marlin coming to gaff
Mako shark, allegedly found only in New Zealand and Tahiti, caught off Havana by E. H.
Two white marlin
Market fishermen taking 300-pound black marlin on board
I AM DYING, LITTLE EGYPT
Burlesque, dying for forgetting its own business, here receives an epitaph and a farewell wreath
by GILBERT SELDES
T quaint and almost forgotten experi- ment, Prohibition, has two triumphs to its credit and they are very much alike: Pro- hibition *destroyed" the saloon and Prohi- bition “destroyed” burlesque; or in plain English, Prohibition sent the saloon underground into the speakeasy and sent burlesque uptown (artistically speaking) into revues. In 1910, if you wanted a drink, you went into a dirty or clean saloon, according to your taste; in 1930, if you wanted a drink you went into a pleasant speakeasy. In 1910, if you wanted nakedness, dirty jokes, and roistering fun, produced chiefly for the pleasure of drunken bums, you went to a burlesque show. In 1930 you could find these things only in revues patronized by ladies and gen- tlemen. Revues took whatever the burlesque show had to offer and refined only the tricks by which it was put over. The short snappy scene with a smutty last line and a quick blackout is fundamentally the same material as the burlesque sketch, only in burlesque the producers were neither afraid nor ashamed of their dirt, and kept the lights on a little longer, as if to make sure that the audience did not miss the point.
Drinking is slowly being restored, by law, but I am afraid that the art of burlesque, as a separate form of enter- tainment, is gone forever, although a few producers still carry on the busi- ness in New York and send a few shows out to the country. The reason is that burlesque long ago forgot its own busi- ness—it stopped being a burlesque of something and became only a rowdier version of the usual musical show. The outstanding burlesque troupe of the nineteenth century was that of Lydia
man) carrying in her black-mitted hands a fan and a reticule and concealing a whisky flask; Jupiter was played by a woman and did a jig; Venus did the сап-сап. This is straight burlesque апа a trace of it remained
THE WHOLE OF BURLEYCUE
by Paul Trebileock
to the very end, not on the great purlesque wheels, which became very proper and clean, but in independent houses like the old Na- tional Winter Garden Burlesque in New York. I recall a superb burlesque of Antony and Cleopatra in which Shakespeare's immortal, “I am dying, Egypt, dying" was caught up by the chorus as a bit of jazz and the death of one of the sol- diers was the only instance in my expe- rience in which the supremely indecent. was at the same time supremely funny.
But in between these extremes lay the routine of burlesque, and, while it was this routine which kept it alive, it was also this routine which killed it. Once seen, it was always remembered; it had no novelty. The chorus, bigger, bolder, and less beautiful than the chorus of a Ziegfeld or Carroll show, came out on the stage or runway and sang the chorus of a song, usually one which had become familiar months earlier. Then the girls shed a garment and retired. Upon this the great event of burlesque began; the star, more per- sonable than the chorus, but seldom a great beauty, took the stage, sang the same chorus, and at the end began to fiddle with part of her costume. It dropped and she disappeared. Presently she returned, did the same thing, and the next item of her scanty wardrobe fell. So to the end—but, Surprise! Surprise! the last time, the singer, des- tined to be altogether nude, disap- peared into the wings before the shirt was completely off, and only the bit of silk was flicked before the greedy eyes of the customers. This is done half a dozen times, with different songs. In all my experience in burlesque I recall but two variations; in one the star used a newspaper instead of a shirt and
Thompson and her British Blondes; 4famous painter, on something of a postman’s holiday, stripped it column by column, while
they burlesqued specifically the classic type of tragedy which the Booths and the Barretts and the Macreadys were
manages to capture the essence of burlesque with the candid camera. Above, the chorus; next below, the short, snappy scene. Bottom row, left to right —the low co- median and the ingenue; the shimmy dancer; moments
the audience, rather wittily, yelled for her to get a tabloid; and the other, the last defense against the censor was not
presenting on the legitimate stage. SO in the routine of the strippers; the lady who also sings. à garment, but Stop, Go and Detour we had cries of delight and of horror Mr. Trebilcock took the pictures from an orchestra seat Signs posted at appropriate places on when Minerva appeared (played by a during regular performances in burlesque theaters. the lady’s body.
Continued on page 110
ESQUIRE—Autumn, 1933
TPA TIS
ESQUIRE—Autumn, 1933
AN IMPRESSION OF BURLESQUE by WITOLD GORDON
41
42
“How Фуа spell polygamy?”
ESQUIR E—Autumn, 1933
EXIT AT THE MORGUE
Being the first of a series of
Down at the Morgue The unwanted dead, Named and nameless, Are put to bed: Laid out neat And stretched out nice, Cooling their feet On a cake of ice.
Down at the Morgue There’s no depression. The dead men march In a mute procession, Day and night The dead men march, Their mouths shut tight And stiff as starch.
Down at the Morgue The dead who died, The charity case, The suicide, The Bowery bum With the bashed-in head— Here they come And go to bed.
Here they sleep
With eyes that stare Up at the ceiling
In the are lamps’ glare: The gangster back
From a ride White and black
Side by side.
This poor punk,
Sick of life, Slit his throat
With a butcher knife; This big rube
Laughed at death With a tube
Between his teeth.
Sampled by fishes
Swollen with water, Salt-pitted, blue-bellied,
In bumps the bloater Nudging the wharf-piles
With orange-peel bottles, Crates, old corsets
And baby rattles.
The river police Bring him to book, Fishing the bloater With a boat-hook: Garbage is fragrant Against these blown guts Hoist the blue vagrant Away from the rats.
Dead men in barrels, Dead men in sacks Trussed up with wire Knees at their necks, Punctured with icepicks, Pumped full of lead— Torsos and scarecrows Dead—dead—dead.
Never they move, Never they mutter; The peddler found Flat in the gutter, The whore they find Stiff with coke, The homeless blind With his bottle of Smoke.
ESQUIRE— Autumn, 1933
poems. that sound the note of New York in a minor key
Here they sleep, Gentile and Jew,
Dead-born infants From Bellevue;
The city's sweeping, Numbered, unknown,
Unwept, unweeping And still as stone.
'The Morgue looks down
On a river muddy With oil as blue
As a dead man's body; Down in the cellar
А shipment of dead, Killed and killer,
Are ticketed.
What is hunger, 'Thirst to them? Life has done Its worst to them: 'They don't holler, They can't crab, Sound asleep On a marble slab.
One old woman Had come from Texas To look at her son Chopped up with axes; They tried every ruse They wanted to spare her But it was no use,
She said it wouldn’t scare her.
“How shall I dread
The child I nursed? If he’s dead he’s dead,
And ГЇЇ know tke worst.” They pulled off the sheet
From that faceless horror She died on her feet 2
It was finished for her.
The House of Death Is painted red; You breathe the breath Of the breathless dead: The strange stale stink Of the Mortuary The dead piled up For a trip on the ferry.
Burial Bay—
A fine fat yield, A bumper crop
For Potter’s Field: The derelict dead
In a burlap sheet, Head to head,
Feet to feet.
Give them a number And let them sleep
A sheeted slumber That will keep:
Sew them tight, Heave with heft: Left—right— Right—left.
by JOSEPH AUSLANDER
The city’s dead The city buries: They pile them up On special ferries. Whether it’s hot, Whether it’s cold, The dead men rot As they are told.
Through a corridor Down a ramp The stretcher-bearers Tramp—tramp; The boat is blunt And squat and black; The dead in front, The dead in back.
Gangplank up, Shove away: It’s hot as hell? The hell you say! It’s drizzling rain, It’s slashing sleet: They don’t complain Of cold, of heat.
Hell Gate looms, The boat goes slow; Then Hart’s Island Flat and low: Snow like lead, Unload the files, Dump the dead In two piles.
If you are A Catholic— A scapular Will do the trick— You get a priest And a holier pit . . . (You'll rise like yeast From the bottom of it.)
If you're not,
God save your soul: They dig a devil
Of a hole; The convicts smell
As they dig your floor . .
What the hell Are convicts for!
Convicts do All the dirt;
They’re soaked through Skin and shirt:
Though it’s blowing Tons of snow
The dead are going Down below.
Forty feet long, Sixteen feet wide, Eight feet deep, And packed inside— Packed to the top Like rows of fish: As fine a crop As you could wish.
One hundred and fifty To each hole: Shovel away And damn your soul! Six thousand clear— But the year is young, Young is the year In dead men’s dung.
Stretched out on a cross
Words like cold flame: “He calls all who
Are His by name.” By number instead
He calls and calls... Shovel the dead
Down to their stalls.
Like sacks of flour The dead men flop;
The wet snow sticks To the bumper crop;
The wet snow sticks
And stings your eyes
The Catholics Are in Paradise.
The others sleep Just as well Next door to Heaven, Next door to Hell. Brush your clothes And run to cover; Blow your nose, The show is over.
Wednesdays, Saturdays, Twice a week,
The dead men play Hide and Seek.
Never completed, The same jest
To be repeated By request.
Down at the Morgue The unwanted dead Swept from the streets Are put to bed: Waiting their turn, Biding their time, Ready to burn In a bed of lime.
Down at the Morgue Laid out neat, Stretched on the ice, Cooling their feet, Sleeping as well As ever Caesar Or Jezebel Or Nebuchadnezzar.
Instead of kingdoms Leaving keys; Pencils instead Of dynasties; Instead of dollars And monuments A few soiled collars, A few cents.
43
INVITATION TO DANGER
An old man exhorts a youngster to lead the life courageous,
in this powerful short story
by MANUEL KOMROFF
* AND you?" he asked. “Ноу do you wel- come danger?"
Of course, I had to admit that I was only a school-teacher and that most of my life was spent in the routine of the school- room. Blackboard chalk wasin my lungs and there were always the boys' papers to сог- reet and the next day's lessons to prepare. “But,” I added quickly, it is not for long. In a few years now I will be retired on a small pension and then I will live in the country and have a garden and...”
“Flowers!” he said.
Well, yes, and other things too. But that is hardly what I would recommend to you, or to anyone like yourself just starting out in life. You are young. I would make a guess and say you were not yet twenty. And I would hardly call growing flowers a dangerous adventure. No, hardly!"
“Funny thing," he said, “І was thinking of flowers just this morning. Don't know how they eame into my mind but they did. They used to make me laugh and now I kind of wonder about them." He gazed blankly before him.
I continued in the same vein; exaetly as I had begun only a few minutes before, when the young fellow, a tota! stranger to me, came into the restaurant and took a seat at my table. I saw him enter, look about for a suitable place and as there were no small tables vaeant he decided that I looked safe enough. I thought he was a bit timid but knowing boys as I do, I hastened to assure him that I was quite alone and glad to have his fellowship.
He smiled at the word "fellowship." It was а bit high-brow and not a word that he would naturally use. He placed his hat on the rack and sat down. He fingered the menu nervously and did not know what to eat. But when the food was brought he devoured it quickly. This caused me to remark that he must have been pretty hungry.
Ves,“ he said smiling. since last night.“
“How is that?"
“Well, I didn't think of it."
“I know just how that is. Food is not very important to a young fellow. When a chap is hungry he will eat and anything at all seems to answer the bill. Yes, I know." I did not say everything that was in my mind. He was quite pale and I eould see he had been dissipating. He has been in a pool-parlor or playing eards all night or he has a girl fifty miles away and spent a good part of the night hitching rides. He looked quite eapable of such folly. His eyes were blue and his skin was white, clean as a child's. I thought there was a weakness in his nature. And that is what started me off.
“You know," I said smiling. Behind my back the boys eall me a ‘harmless duffer.’ They say I’m ‘easy’ because I do not сате much about discipline. But really, I tell
“My first grub
41
them the most daring things. I want my boys to be courageous. I want them to have their own convictions and the courage to stand by them. I try to make them think for themselves and then I ask them to live by what they think. I tell them that life is not a monotonous hum-drum thing and that it could be made into something really worth while. That there should be an exeite- ment to living; it should have a pulse that beats feverishly, and a drive... yes, all that and more. And there is one way to get the fullness out of life and that is to be coura- geous, daring and even court danger! It was an Ameriean philosopher who first presented the belief that we would live better if we lived more dangerously.”
“And when you are dead, where do you ко?” he asked suddenly.
This was a question I hardly expected and I did not think it had very much bear- ing on what I was saying. Evidently he had misunderstood.
Take yourself for instance. Now I don’t know what you do or anything about you. But you are young and in good health. Why should a fellow hang around a pool- room or some such place listening to cheap talk and learning cheap tricks? Any weak fool could do that. But no. If I were young...”
“All right captain, what would you do?”
“Well, I would hop a boat and see a bit of the world. I would work my way and
perhaps stop off in China or India or Africa or wherever we docked. I would see a little
of foreign lands and learn the ways of the natives. I would try and join a party. Any party. If I ran into some engineers I would go along and we wou'd prospect; or I would join a party to go to Tibet and see if Buddist priests could really do magie feats or if it was all hokus-pokus. And if it was all fake I would come back quick and tell the world about it. Or I would try to get up a party of my own and tack down those African slave-traders who make night raids on peace- ful villages and take black boys and girls to sell for long terms of labor. I would eer- tainly put my hooks into those fellows. And I would have plenty of guns with me and lots of ammunition and by golly we would open fire on them without mercy!" I spoke these words with enthusiasm.
He smiled.
"Well," I concluded. That is what I mean by living with excitement—with eour- age."
“Апа so you think I ought to hop a boat?"
“Yes. Oratrainor..."
Plane?“
Ves anything!“
“Well, I was thinking about a plane my- self," he said. "In fact I went out to the air-port this morning but I did not like the looks of the field."
“Yes, I understand. I am timid myself; and the first time I went up my heart was in my throat. But you get over it. That `s just the kind of thing a young fellow should do.”
“All right captain. Thanks for the advice.“
“T did not mean to give you advice. For- give me if it sounded like that. It’s my school-room manner. That is how I talk to my boys and I ean tell just what is going on in their minds. I сап say without vanity that I really understand...”
Just then two men came into the res- taurant. They went straight to our table and stood behind his chair.
He knew they were behind him and he kept looking at me. The big heavy man, with a red beefy face, turned the youth’s head up and had a good look at him.
“You're a handsome kid,“ he said, but we want you for murder!“
The youth did not reply. He stood up and held out his hands.
“Put the bracelets on him," said the big detective to his companion. The handeuffs were snapped on.
“I’m glad it's over," said the young fel- low. *Let's go!"
“Which one of these is your hat?" the big fel'ow asked.
“The hell with the hat! I won't need it."
And with these words thev marched out.
When the excitement died down, tke waiter eame forward and wanted to kncw who was going to pay his check. I said I would.
Now the reason why I tell you all this is that you should know that, besides being a *harmless duffer, I am also a damn fool.
ES QUIRE— Autumn, 1933
ESQUII E—Autumn, 1923
THE CELLOPHANE GOWN by GILBERT SEEHAUSEN
Chicago in the summer of the Century of Progress . . . a confused im- pression of gaiety and boob-baiting . . . of judges declaiming against “those who would put pants оп a horse" ... of other judges insisting upon “if not pants, then at least something" . .. of Bible-belt citizens coming to gasp—and gape . . . and returning, after a wondering examination. of the multitudinous exhibits of science and the arts, with only this one memory sharp and clear: nudity and high buildings.
“Ach, does beer make you sleepy?”
ES
Aerea: ia a ПРСТЕНИ
DRYPOINT BY JOHN GROTH
ESQUIR E— Autumn, 1933
THERE’S NO REPEALING TASTES
The boys will blink at many a wine card, but gin will always be a lonely girl’s best friend
by FREDERICK VAN
N THE cellar of the
Hotel du Beaune— which is the cellar in the hotel of the fair province of Burgundy —they tell this story in the language of rolling eyes, raised shoulders and waving hands.
It seems that some three summers ago a celebrated connoisseur of vintages, a peer- less local gentleman named Marcel Duprez, fell victim of an automobile accident while on his way to attend the XX XVII Congress of Vineyardists of France in the city of Dijon. Removed to a nearby country house in a state of coma, he was recognized by his host, a fellow member of the Beaune Cham- ber of Commerce, placed on a Louis XVI couch in the drawing room and accorded honors usually reserved for the next of kin. A dust-covered bottle was brought from the cellar and a tablespoon of the precious liquid poured down the parched throat of Mon- sieur Duprez through his black lips. There was a long, tense wait. The proprietor of the country house,the village physician and the gray-haired overseer of the cellar stood around the couch with their heads bowed. Then—you should hear them describe this particular phase of the story in the Hotel du Beaune—the eyes of the dying man half opened and a faint color came into his hag- gard cheeks. He moistened his lips. He seemed to be wishing to say something. The proprietor of the country house, the village physician and the gray-haired overseer of the cellar pressed forward and cupped their ears. They waited some more and then they heard the muffled sounds of a choking voice.
“Chambertin 1878," whispered Monsieur Duprez and passed away. . . . It was Cham- bertin 1878.
Let us change the locale of this heart- breaking story. Let us suppose that a dis- tinguished New Yorker, a valuable client of the joy-dispensaries in the East Fifties, gets his skull fractured while on the way to spend a week-end at the shrine of a Government Liquor Store in Montreal. Let us further imagine that he is fortunate enough to be removed to one of those nice country houses between Syracuse and Buffalo where they still have a bottle or two of “pre-war stuff” buried behind the five-foot-shelf of Dr. Elliott’s classies.
Now then, what will the last words of our dying New Yorker be? Will he recognize the smooth touch of the noble wine? Will his palate be brought back to life and appreciation by that shade of differ- ence in the taste which makes each vintage of a “grand vin” as easy to detect as it is easy
ESQUIRE—Autumn, 1933
to tell a Broadway cop even if he is wearing the blue pullover and the gay checkered knickers of the Prince of Wales? The answer is “по.” Here is one thousand dollars in hoarded gold against one unautographed photograph of Herbert Hoover's birthplace in West Branch, Iowa, that on opening his eyes our dying New Yorker would spit the tablespoonful of Chambertin 1878 out of his bleeding mouth and say audibly and resent- fully:
Haven't you got some real booze, with a real kick?”
And our dying New Yorker will not be to blame. For the last thirteen years of his life he was swallowing booze, booze and booze. No matter what the labels on the bottles said and no matter who had recommended his bootlegger to him—be it even the House Committee of the Union Club—he never tasted even a single drop of honest-to-good- ness Veuve Cliquot, virginal Benedietine or staunch Burgundy since the Year of Our Lord Andrew Volstead 1920. And what little sensitivity his hard-bitten palate could have preserved since the pre-prohibition days had been dissolved long ere this in the flood of gin-riekies, gin-fizzes, martinis, manhattans and old-fashioneds.
Tip your hat to the memory of our dis- tinguished New Yorker and consider the pathetic ease of his survivors, the Tony’s alumni and graduates, 1920— 1933, who are about to hear Secretary Hull announce in solemn intonations of his Tennessee-bred voice that the thirty-sixth State having duly registered itssovereign, Jim Farley-prompted will, the Eighteenth Amendment to the Con- stitution of the U. S. A. is hereby removed to the Smithsonian Institute and placed in the room reserved for the eggs of ichtiosauri.
After the Repeal what?
“Garcon, une bouteille de Chateau- Laffitte 1907 bien chambrée” or “Топу, shake another Dry Martini and for General Johnson’s sake don’t spare your gin now that it's real." It takes something less than Raymond Moley’s brains to solve this prob- lem. For one thing, it is clear and obvious that Tony does not contemplate a retire- ment, only the suppression of the chain-lock on his door. And why should he retire? Didn’t he sacrifice the better part of his life teaching the growing generations of clean- eut Americans how to distinguish between Gilbey’s Dry Gin made in their own bath- tubs and Gilbey’s Dry Gin made in a publie bath-tub in Newark, №. J.?
For another thing—and we have the testi- mony of the barkeepers on the transatlantic liners to back us—a stomach accustomed to the walloping caresses of rye, scotch and gin refuses to be soothed by the half-hearted petting technique of champagne, cordials, table-wines and the other beverages con- taining not more than 18% of alcohol. It is a well known fact that beginning with the second day of an eastward crossing, right after the first thrill of seeing a legitimate and
RYN
genuine card of wines dies down, the major- ity of passengers switch to the hard stuff and stay switched until the very end of their Euro- pean voyage. It is a less known but equally proven fact that even those supposedly so- phistieated travelers who never stop gabbing about Chablis Supe- rieur, Chateau-Latour and Mouton-Roths- child while at home suddenly develop an irresistible béguin for a shot of good old Golden Wedding the moment they find themselves in close proximity to the vine- yards of their winter dreams.
This is as it should be. A generation brought up on the eurves of Jean Harlow cannot be expeeted to admire the smile of Mona Lisa. A generation accustomed to the one-hundred-and-one-gun salute of a battery of cocktails before dinner will be wasting its money and effort on wading through that galaxy of fine vintages which should aecom- pany a well-ordained, civilized meal. Even under the beneficial regime of the NRA the last word in the matters of digestion belongs to chemistry. And while, according to chem- istry, a considerable sum of pleasant uncer- tainty in the legs and comfortable warmth in and around the stomach can be derived from combining the pale-yellow sharpness of frozen white wine with the blood-ruby smoothness of a red wine heated to the tem- perature of the room, provided both are put to bed by the firm but gentle hand of an elderly brandy, the self-same chemistry teaches us that—
Six cocktails (imbibed between 7 p. m. and 8 p.m.) + one pint of Chablis Village 1919 (with the fish course) + one pint of Chambertin 1923 (with the entrée) + one pint of Paul Roger Brut Superieur 1921 (with the dessert) + one glassful of Cognac Napoleon 1809 (with the coffee) = one hur- ried trip to the bathroom.
Not that chemistry or I fail to realize that gin always has been and always will be a lonely girl’s best friend and that rye whiskey always has been and always will be arejected suitor’s tried and trusted standby. It simply so happens that hard liquors do not mix with their softer colleagues and that of all the fine arts the Art of Drinking is the most difficult one to master. Which—with the kind per- mission of the copyright owners in the Res- taurant Tourd’Argent, ex Quai de Tourelles, Paris—reminds me of another, a rather tragie story. Nobody gets his or her skull fraetured this time but the late King Edward VII of England is being cen- sured, censured publicly and severely. The action
E= Continued on page 104
47
* Why Mister Pettigrew! You bite your finger nails"
ESQUIRE— Autumn, 1933
PUBLICITY HY CUTTLEBONE
Big and common. and nothing
like a racehorse. Cuttlebone
jumped like he sat on tacks
by DAVID HOADLEY MUNROE
HE only time I think maybe I got no
brains is when I look at Slim Johnson, and remember it was me picked him as a partner. He’s a tall thin guy with big feet and two eyes that ain’t twins, and he’s one of these publicity hounds who thinks every- thing’s news, even himself, and things that didn’t happen, and wasn’t ever going to. He spends all his time studying out ways to make people look at him, and to get famous, only his plans always work out different from the way he thought.
Like that time over in Jersey, when he got all steamed up about our old horse Cuttlebone, and wanted to run him in that amateur hunt steeplechase. That was a dumb idea, even for Slim. Cuttlebone is a big common horse that can jump, and that’s won us plenty show jumping money, but he ain’t nothing like a racehorse. He be- longed to three of us in partnership—Slim, and me, and Jimmy Taylor, a little guy that did the riding, and that ain’t said a whole sentence out loud since last March, when he told Slim to go to hell one day after breakfast. So when Slim gets this brain storm, he can't do nothing without asking us, and he comes round to me, and starts explaining about it.
“Slim,” I says pretty soon, “‘there’s some- thing wonderful about a guy that ean think up so many ideas that's no good! Go sell your flowers somewhere else."
You see, there was plenty reasons against it. Aside from us not having a chance, it costs fifty bucks to enter that race, and we
only got fifty-one, not to speak of a sheriff that's after us for some bills Slim forgot to pay last time we was rich.
“Fifty bucks for a race we got no chance in?" I says. "What for? Them thorough- breds is all fast, and Cuttlebone is slower than the jaekass you keep making me think of.”
Maybe,“ says Slim. But he don't ever get tired, even if he ain't racing fit. He could run to California, that horse could, or to Alaska."
"Yeah, but this race ain't to California, nor yet to Alaska," I comes back. ‘‘This race is four miles over big timber fences, and it's so important they got two thou- sand bucks as a prize! We'd look swell put- ting the old goat in that! You know we got no chance of winning."
“Win?” says Slim. Win? Who said any- thing about winning? Not me, I didn't! Did you hear me say anything about win- ning? Sure you didn’t—and that's just it!“
"He'd come in a mile behind," Is i
“A mile behind?" Slim waves his arms like a loony. “А mile behind? If he does, there’ll be something awful funny, and ГЇЇ know all the other jockeys is crooks! Say, if he don’t come in at least two miles behind, I'm going to lodge an objection, that's what I'm going to do!"
Right then I decides he's nuts, and tries distraeting his mind.
"Look there, Slim!’ I says. “See that pretty looking bird? Ain't he swell? Let's go walking and look at him."
"My God!" says Slim, and waggles his little head at me. ‘‘He’s talking about the birdies! Say, are you batty? No? Well, quit talking then and listen . . . You got no publicity sense, Bill, no vision—that's why you're so dumb! Of course I don't figure to win this race. But who wants to win it? Who wants to win any race? Horses win races every day—there ain't no news to a horse winning a race. But losing a race, losing a race real bad, so bad it's funny— how about that? That's news, ain't it? You bet that don't happen every day! And listen —they got a special rule in this race. If a horse comes in more than fifteen minutes after the winner, he gets disqualified, see? The winner'll make it in about ten minutes, at the most—so that gives Cuttlebone twenty-five minutes to get round. Do you get it, Bill, do you get it?“
I get it. I got how we'd look like seven different kinds of ja ses if we put a common horse in a race like that.
"How do you figure that gives us any publicity?” I asks. *Cuttlebone'll be so far behind folks'll forget he started."
Slim puts his face down in his hands. “For five years, Bill," he says, with a kind of moan, for five years I been teaching you—and still you got no vision! Fix your eyes shut tight, like I got mine, and think. There’s the racetrack. The fast horses has finished. The crowd is through looking at 'em. Suddenly someone remembers Cuttle- bone. Where is he? There he is, rolling along best he ean! He's got twenty-five
Continued on page 77
ESQUIRE—Autumn, 1933
WOODSCULPTURE FOR ESQUIRE BY CARL HALLSTHAMMAR
49
PRODIGAL SON OF PARIS
A study of contrasts in the life of Jules Pascin to aid an understanding of his art
by
Т is now three years since he opened his veins in that studio in the Pigalle. It was in the summer time, and I was painting in à suburb near Paris. The news unnerved me completely. There was nothing I could do for him; he was gone; yet I returned to Paris immediately. For was I not his friend? He had many friends, I realized rather suddenly, as I hurried back to town, and to them, as to me at that moment, the news must have been an intensely personal pain—almost an affront. Were they not thinking, as I know I must have felt at least momentarily, “Не need not have done that—he should not have done that—he had me for friend.”
Perhaps I did not consciously feel that thought exactly as I have now expressed it. It is hard to be honestly accurate about one’s thoughts of a moment, when that moment has receded three years in time. But I must have thought it, although it is only now that I put the thought in words. But this I do remember definitely, from that moment when word of his going eame to me: I thought there were a lot of us, I suppose, who counted him as one of our closest and dearest friends —-his friendship was important to us, a thing of very great importance indeed, yet what could it have been to him? It could not have been much, for he has done this. And then, as I started back to Paris, I realized that I must have known, always, something about him that occurred to me only now at the moment when his life had run out of his veins: He was gay when he was with us—he was the gay pessimist, the reckless flippant prodigal, but alone he was unbearable to himself.
And then, in death, he suddenly meant more to me, as an artist, than he had meant, living, as a friend.
We buried him, we who were his friends arranged his funeral. But it was like him to have bought the grave beforehand—it was as like him as it would have been unlike the average Montparnassian. All the artists, enemies and friends, erowded Boulevard Pigalle. The government sent an official rep- resentative and a large funeral wreath. We were a tremendous crowd, when we left him there in the San Juan cemetery, but large as the crowd was I remember thinking that it would have been larger still had it numbered all those for whom he had ever paid the bills in the cafes of the Montmartre.
And all that was three years ago. It seems very odd to be talking about it now. But I would not have talked about it sooner. And I mention it now only because in his death there was a key to his art. Not that a key had to be supplied—he was a painter for painters—but it afforded something in the way of explanation that would have been lacking otherwise.
The language of great painting is not liter- ature and it is very hard to attempt to trans- late it into words. Here and there, bit by bit, a little violet, a little pink, a spot of blue, rose or any other color which the artist sees
50
SAM OSTROWSKY
and feels through his models, he transfers from the palette to the canvas, producing certain nuances and color and line harmo- nies. A composer of music sets sounds into harmonies that mirror his own temperamen- tal interpretation of nature. In like manner, Pascin used colors, instead of sounds. A bit of a grey stocking, a little pink dress, an orange ribbon, a pale face of a lonely girl of the Montmartre or Montparnasse, the beau- tiful form of her figure—someone, I forgot who, said that the body of a woman was Pascin’s universe—such was the food that nourished his art.
But first let me tell you something of his life, as a background to the manner of his death, before I essay further to explain his art.
His was not, by any means, the usual stereotyped story of privation and struggle and failure to obtain recognition. Both money and fame came early. Nor had either run out at the time he chose for death. It is true, his struggle for a livelihood was at times very severe—and those are the times that I remember most clearly. But success сате to him as a very young man.
From Vienna, where he had began his art studies—he was born in Bulgaria in a hum- ble Jewish family—he went to Berlin where he immediately attracted attention by his highly individual caricatures, published in "Simplieissimus," and by some unusual book illustrations. Thus, although he came to Paris at the age of twenty, he came not like the rest, with a hard apprenticeship ahead of him, but as a man of some standing, a figure of some elegance. This was in 1905, when a little money went a long way, any- where, and espe- 4 eially in the Latin Quarter which was then, more than now, still a quarter and still Latin.
But the speed with whieh money eame to Pascin was always just slightly exceeded by the speed with whieh he could dispose of it. His friends were all who happened to be within shout- ing range when he headed for a eafe. Seated, he would order lav- ishly for every- body. Yet his clothes were no better than those of the average denizen of the dis- trict, which means that they were
pretty bad, because the artists of the quar- ter, at that time, expressed themselves on canvas in their studios and not in cloth on their backs. And his studio was as meagerly furnished and as bare as anybody’s. That was the first of the contrasts; he expressed himself in contrasts, always.
The time of his arrival in Paris was the period when discussions of the great painter Paul Cezanne were running high at the cafe tables of the Montparnasse, for Cezanne was the first painter to realize the true concep- tion of painting for painting’s sake, being a painter for painters and not for the object of picture-making. Pascin was talented enough —talent was the word for him, based on his achievements up to that date, for he had not yet grown to the stature required for the mantle of genius—to realize this, and he im- mediately fell under the Cezanne influence. Renoir also influenced him with his very illuminative and tender color conceptions. Since Pascin himself was a great colorist and highly sensitive to color, he could not help but be influenced by these two great men, and he could not have had better formative influences.
I have never approved of that method of criticism which consists of hacking an art- ist's work up into “‘periods’’—it has always seemed to me to be closely akin to vivisec- tion—but if it were to be applied to Pascin, you could speak of his first period as being plus Cezanne and minus Renoir; his second period, as plus Renoir and minus Cezanne; his third period as minus Renoir and Ce- zanne and plus Pasein.
It was between his first and second peri- ods,” then, that Pascin left Paris for New
York. His whole life was some- thing of a tour with stopovers. Viddin (Bulgaria) to Vienna to Ber- lin to Paris to New York—the fever for travel was not coming out in him, it was merely remain- ing. Ithad always been there. Yet he never, after those first Paris days, seemed so essentially Pari- sian as when he was away from Paris.
In New York, as in Berlin be- fore, he ‘‘went commercial." His own creative work suffered, as he occupied his time at illustra- tion. By chance
Continued on page 89
ESQUIRE— Autumn, 1933
OIL PAINTING BY JULES PASCIN COLLECTION DAVID A. SMART, CHICAGO
ES Q UIR E—Autumn, 1933
52
MONOTYPE BY JOHN GROTH
Darling, that’s a lie, you know I never look at another woman"
ESQUIRE— Autumn, 1933
IN
THE
BOIS
Although Sheryl had been beastly and though Nally had been banal. reunion was romantie in the Bois
by DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS, JR.
[ was early Autumn in the Bois, during that lazy period in the afternoon when nursemaids congregate to gossip and the children stop playing long enough to eat their bread and chocolate.
Earlier in the day a coquettish Autumn shower had dampened the fallen leaves and an indecisive breeze had seattered them in- diseriminately over the myriad pathways and wide stretches of grass that separated rows of stately, fading ehestnut trees.
Nally (we shall not give him a last name; he was that kind of a chap) walked slowly along the path, regardless of where it took him. A life of regulation