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About The Omaha morning bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 1922-1927 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 26, 1924)
* I I, THE KING By WAY LAND WELLS WILLIAMS. (Copyright. 1124.) k.--—' (Continued from Yesterday.) V. One night he gave a dinner at his house which was followed by a long session at an Imitation cafe chantant. They were six, Kit, Mary. Cora Bax ter, Major Boon and a married pair, asked with some vague idea of chap eronage: these, as they don't matter, and aren't going to matter, may be referred to as A (the wife) and X. Around two o'clock the conversation reached that mellow ease in which Kit now found both the fullest forget fulness and the fullest sense of living. Boon (returning with Cora from dancing): That waiter's taken away the end of my drink again. Tar yome. X never really enjoy a drink till the ice is all melted. Cora: That's so; Englishmen hate Ice. ‘ Ho! Funny. Mary: I don’t know; I think this talk about English people being cold is mostly Action, and rather cheap Action at that. Cora: My dear, did you ever try to bring one to the scratch? A (with a gurgle) Scratch is right. Treat ’em rough. Coral Boon: Most of this talk about peo ple of different races being different strikes me as tosh. I’ve trotted round a good bit; India and Jamaica and Oallipoll and the Front, and I’ve found the gam# old gags work pretty much everywhere. Love and money, amhition and vanity—you never get away from them. Kit: Yes, most nationalistic talk is silly. People ara always the same; only their manners are different, The best— X (one of those red-blooded Amer icans born with a constitution hate of all races but their own. and espe cially the one that gav$ them birth): Some manners are different. Some are just plain bad. Kit; The best mannered people I ever saw were the Xiaravans. and they were also the most Ignorant and primitive. Boon: The manners of most Orien tals are exquisite, compared to ours. Cora: Well, what does that prove, except that manners have nothing to do with civilization? I’ve always known that. That's why I've never had any manners, or wanted any. Mary: I've always thought that ill mannered people were more sincere than the others.'but— Boon: Ah, but—exactly! You lose something by not having them. You— Cora: Nonsense. I— Kit: We're a pioneer race still. Wait till we’re as thickly populated as Europe, and you'll see our manners take a brace. t _ .. Boon: Hold up—the Arabs have the most beautiful manners, and they live about one to the square mile— _ . Neu) York • •Day by Day— ■ By O. O. M’INTYRE. New York, Nov. 25.—All Broad wav is trailing to the Neighborhood playhouse in Grand street on the East Side to aee the foibles and fads of the Great White Way satirized in "The Grand Street Follies." It 1* all good, keen stuff. In the midst of this teeming ghetto end surrounded by about $100 worth of scenery, a group of hitherto ob hww score players are displaying more of the penetratingly humorou*'faculty than their brothers and sisters up town. • They are making hlllarioua trav esty of such institution* as the Super-Drama league, the self con scious serious thinkers of the Algon quin, the tone poem, ticket spec ulators, the Teapot Dome scandal. Barrymore's "Hamlet," the South Sea Island craze and Mother Janls and Elsie. The skits were fashioned. of course, for the sophisticates. And yet the strange thing is that the natives of the East Side enjoy them fully As much. Each night finds Its sprin kling of stage celebrities of t$i® f Rialto. It is s colorful audience. Old wo men and bearded Yiddish patriarchs who do not remove their hats. Young men In exaggerated styles of the day who still speak in broken English. Full bosomed, red-cheeked Joung gii Is who chew • gitm. Men about tuwn. Leading ladles and movie daz zlcrs. A four plwce orchestra renders rhe music. Between acts the refresh • ments consist of charlotte ruses and varicolored • lollipops.' The’ higest priced seat is $1,50 and to their credit no tickets are placed In the hands of speculators. If there is anything more comic than an imitation Fanny Brice play ing Ophelia and an imitation Galla gher and Shean ^s Grave Diggers I do not care to see it. After ail, every * man reaches the age when he doesn't care to fail out of chalre in fits of la tighter. Grand street is more than A mere crosstown throughfare bearing that name. It is to the East Side just what ♦ he name implies—"a grand street " There la a flair to shops and stores, over each of which are tenement apartments. Sunday is the big day of the week. Wlgged orthodox women ait in the doorways as an anchroniatic note In the life that swirls about them —girls with their beaux, father with perambulators, street bands snd hurdy gurdlee. Kosher shop orrhes A ties, racing, noisy children and splashes of old world costuming. The children are trained to taka care of themselves from the time they grad uate from crawling. About the neighborhood playhouse are a hundred street gamins who open doors of taxicabs bearing up town visitors. They seek a gratuity and a half hour's watching did not gain them as much ns n penny, which amount is their supremest de sire. It tykes insulting myrmidons B gold braid to make New York tip. And the neighborhood playhouse, by the way. Is not an alley theater. It Is well built and figures largely In the life of many stars. Among others whom the four winds have wafted to its stage are Yvette Gull bert. Ellen Terry. Emanuel Belcher, Ruth Draper, Rabindranath Tagore. * Jacob Hen-Ami. Ian Maelaren Mlchlo Bow. N.vota. Inyoka, Edith Wynne Mntthlson and Perry Grainger. Grand street Is filled with little mothers spindly legged girls who devote all their time to taking cite *f younger members of the family ^ while their parents toll in the factory loftr (Copyright. 1124.1 Cora: I am not Interested tn the Arabs. (Cort was possessed of a cer tain primitive power. Her remark conclusively put a quietus on aoeiol ogy.) Boon (with a tolerant smile, as though to an attractive child): What are you Interested to, duckle, be sides me? Cora (chin on hand, eyeing him sidewise): I'm not particularly inter ested in you. 1 told you that thh first thnq. I met you. Kit: And Boon didn't believe you, and that's why hp hangs round. The snake and the toad all over again— Boon and Cora (In one breath); Thanks! Cora (her bored hut naright esoap ing eyes on him): Newell, as a matter of fact I'm rather interested In you We nil are. We don’t half know about that Island yet. Mary: No one does, or ever will. He can't tell, and isn’t fool enough to try. Cora: Oh, I don't mean women— that is, I don’t care about women— A (ailkily): No, darling, you're right there. Cora: I mean, what I remember of him is a little hoy in knickerbockers playing with Bobby and not liking him—as who w-ould?—In short, a nice little man destined for Tale and Wall street. Now he turns up—well, with an air. Mystery. Concealed power. You, Boon, with all the knocking round you’ve done, haven’t got half his air. That's why I don't want to marry you. Teddy, my late la mented husband, had that air to per fection, which was of course why 1 fell for him. He'd sit behind the wheel as Lloyd George might sit at a cabinet meeting. The fate of em pires seemed to hang on that man s profile. What he was actually think ing of was Norma Talmadge. which was of course why I left him. No, I'll sav frankly lhat If the Archangel Gabriel told me I'd have to marry one man in this room, and could have my choice, Newell would be the one. Kit (taking a drink, highly cheer ful): Now Isn't it nice to have that settled’ The only doubtful point is whether the Archangel Gabriel would compel me to accept. Boon: According to Clara's game, obviously. , , , Mary: Oh. the Archangel Gabriel is every one’s champion. About the only one. X: And as he doesn't exist . . . Mary: Yes, hence this world, I sup P°Boon (eveing her thoughtfully). What would you ask Gabriel to gl\e you? , . Mary: In my more exalted moods I’d ask to he married to a man I could love'a 11 my life. In moments of common sense 1’<1 ask for an assured income of a million a year. Cora: Silly, why ask for that when with something else you could have the fun of getting it? I'd be eighteen again, keeping m.v present knowledge and experience. Boon? Boon (gfter Intending for a frac tion of a second to say something else): A seat in the Shires, and twenty thousand a year. Cora: Newell? Kit: A certain person alive who is dead. X: A certain person dead who Is alive. A: Oh—a really becoming face cream. This Is idiotic, you know. Cora: It is. We're all, you observe, like those fools in the fairy stories that ask for money or material bene fits of some kind. All except Newell who's at heart a dear, hut aix months hence he'd probably choose differ ently. X: Very likely, hut what does this prove? Cora: It proves the one thing 1 v# always believed and lived by in the course of a long and colorful life. It proves that we re a race of moles. AN <■ know that wealth doesn't necessarily bring happiness, and yet w-e ask for it. Even when we've got it and sec that we aren't happy, we haven't got the sense to go on and find out what is worth having We admire reli gion and philosophy from a distance, but. Heavehs! we don't ask for them. Thev make me tired Why has no qn» ever said that, if religion and philoaophv were what they're eaid to he, we'd all be St. Francises and Soc rateses? Ktt: Because only a few of us can be. Cora: Exactly—religion and phi losophy don't apply! Damn it, what good is differential calculus to a bunch of moles'’ What good are the Sermon on the Mount and the Dio logues of Plato to us? Talk evolu tion—blah! ‘ We’ve had those things before our eyes for two thousand years'or more, and still w»’ve got no more sense than to ask for a million a year. Why doesn't it occur to any one that somethings wf-ong? Look at the wsr. I ask you. look st the war!—and at us now. 1 say, either you've got to sdmit that the race is a failure, a race of moles, or that religion and philosophy are, g* ap plied to the rare as a whole. Person ally, I ptn my faith to the moles. Situ pie animal nature a*ems to me a safer thing to build on than the visions of a few pure vague souls. I think the only things to admire are the old animal things—lust and strength and courage and plain common aense. In short, going after what you like and avoiding what you don't like. Kit: Bravo! You're not— Mary: Brava, in this case. Adjec tive, referring to performer.—Yea, I'll say brava, becahse Cor.T is count geoua at least. And yet I don't agree. Hang it, I don't! What Cora says makes ms feel hot r!1 over, and re sisting. I couldn't possibly say what 1 mean the way Cora does, and yet I'm perfectly sure that we re not such swine as that. Boon: Easy onl Don't get to de spising awlne! Mary (laughing): No, I won't. Swine are all very well in their way, and so are moles, snd so are weevils. But —men are neither moles nor weevils' There! Boon, Kit, X: Aha! The truth at last! . , Mary (her eyes dancing, the pale (an of her face pink with excitement): Well, Isn't that what Cora says we are? I deny it. 1 say the same things don't satisfy us, and can't. I say we've got to try. Boon: Yes. Mary, we hetong to the trying variety of weevil Even the most weevlly of us crave some sort of spiritual satisfaction. But where does It lie? That * the question. Corn. Nowhere. That * the answer. Mnrv; In merely trying, possibly Corn: We have with us tonight the late Robert Browning. Oh, don’t think t haven't gone ihrough all A; |’m getting so sleepy. 1 want to dance, or else go home. Mary: Ves, lull whs he so absurd? After all. we may X: Come along, then. You fellowa don't have to l.e hi an office at nine. Good night, Fine party, Newell. The four others: Good night. Bo long Bee you soon. Cora (watching th* two retreating figures): And the hrute n»'*r even offered to pay his share.- Not that I Warns him Boon: Rut uiu do'. Aha, the Joint In the amort Mary I will gay It. We may bf unhappy trying, but we're more un happy not trying. t'nra: Comfortable, but obvious. Also untrue. i in: My commentary on all ihis is that we four. In spite of our cyni cism. are all nearer to something than those two that went out. Cora sava awful thins*, but at heart she doesn't mean them. They don't say awful thinss. and would probably disasree If pul to It, but they do Kit: Well, there's somethinc to be said against diseussins metsphysl.es on an evening of pleasure. Cora: But this Isn't metaphysical It's where we stand, what we are. now. ftsl Cost rhHdren! People who've gone through hell for an Ideal, and find the ideal bogus: Disillu sioned, blind, sore—damn It, I want to bite some one! Mary (humorously, and without offense): Cora, did you go through hell in the war? I didn't, frankly. Kit Oh. you don't have to have heen through It to feel what Cora feels. We all feel It It's in the air. Roon: And the dreary part of It Is that we'll mug along somehow, with out Ideal*, and then when prosperity returns we 11 gradually build up n new set of Ideals. And then there'll be another great crash like that of 1R14. and the whole structure will come tumbling down about our grandchtl dren's heads. And they'll want to bite us. and sav: "But why didn't they tell us, why didn’t they make u* Bee’ . . ." By Jove, It dor« mak* on* , . •irk of the (tame. Kit: It doee that and other thlnita Cora: Cat-nick. (Te Be (MtlnM Tomorrow 1 Bee Want Ada Trodnre neaiiln. THE NEBBS PRIDE GOETH BEFORE A FALL. Directed for The Omaha Bee by Sol He»i (Copyright 1124) /WOOR fa* T>4E.RE'S^\ f MAIL . MR ME.e»e. • J LETTER VIM \ MR va/ILLIA(MS „ \ LOOKUvlG VDW - IO m\E “TO EROIM the J a TO WOO J ^RvSTONi GLOB/ I ■ I (' NOOQ PVPPUC^T'ON POP ME^BERS^O WPS UNfMsWNNOOSLN REJECTED TOOPN" anO VOO wjXEtnisJO ENCLOSED WERE Wi'fW CHECK EORVOOR XNXTWVTxON wjmiCW fXCCO^PAKJXLD voop ftPPUC^T'OnJ " — VxJCU. WHKTPx NOU THINK OP THKT l tyjNCH OF HOLLOW v—k WEM5S 1 —r- i ii i /"^wello. r^KiNN -yoo’O^x (better order o TuRKEV VOR\ I D\NUER -TO^OQQO^I - *$> WE) I OEOOEO WOT TO GOTO ThE ( \ CLU0 - I’EV. E^PEOAN) the / YREO.EOKJ WHEN l GET UOMEy --T" H rr^ ’ UUMJWOOSLT REofcLTtw" TMm MRU >p vvji s ^■ffiasfr’asff^ifsasFj ToSSVWSt'SwEffw \ I v'0«OPCR!-S''£St OOO^WJO SuU.0 \ PROPERTY sway: . VUGETJ TMOSE JACK-ASSES C 1 M\KEO UP - TRET VAiOMT ) ((MOW WMiCH OOOP TO/ --- 60 \NJTO / • • V,,( } -f*‘ i ,/^*kk. ^ / ] Barney Google and Spark Plug BARNEY COULD STRANGLE RUDY FOR THIS. D'*w" T»>* Omjjb. B«* by Billy DeB«ek / KEEP THAT BANDAGE , / on Tour foot and Sit>P \ -1 CAWT HELP f VjORRViNG ABOUT THAT \ \NORRViNG,0OC! I English Horse that-s on his I THINK ill l WAV OVER here To meet Move MV CHAIR \ STARX p - i ll see / JNTo Thr too TOMORPOVaJ • / STABLE where 1M LEAVING / x CAW iO^aJM iODAY/ £Ye om sparky-- • mv Foorit/ & a la i! & & BRINGING UP FATHER Registered O. S. 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