JO ELLEN 1
By ALEXANDER BLACK. Copyright, 1124. I
l - - *
(Owntinned From Saturday.)
•Tve telephoned home.” he aal(L
“that we’re going to bat around. Thle
part of It’s our affair. I don’t want
either your mother or mine In It Jdst
r.ow. Until we get an angle. We'll
find a nice quiet table at Mallory’*.”
Bogert had a New Yorker’s feeling
that anything could be done at a res
taurant table. Jo Ellen was less as
sured. She was glad to have Uncle
Ben to herself for the period of his
report. That was quite practical, per
haps. Yet she wished it might not
have been a restaurant.
"What I was thinking," he said ns
they walked, "is that it’s a mighty
good thing you have a Job. Ain’t
that so? A Job that keeps you going.
You’d be crazy, sitting around. And
you’d go dippy down on that roof—
all day of it. Fine view. too. Won
derful view. I didn't realize what
a swing there was to It. I didn’t
look at it much this morning. You’ll
guess that. But I saw K, because
Marty was outside. He was my man.
I went straight for him. Mrs. Gloom
looked at me as if I was a sneak
thief caught in the act. O yes! She
gave me a goshawful look, and I had
to find a way of telling her that I
wasn’t interested in her conversation
a little bit. Of course. I did it in a
nice enough way. I even asked how
she was. And how Simms was. She
didn't ask how anybody was. Nat
urally. She was Just putting the fear
oi God into me. Anyway, that’s the
way I felt at the beginning. I don’t
say a person could get used to her.
That would be going pretty far. But
she’s a human being. We've got to
remember that.”
"It’s rather hard to remember,” re
marked Jo Ellen.
"O well—but, say, let’s get some
thing to eat before we start chin
ning." Yet Bogert permitted few
pauses after they had reached his
chosen corner in Mallory’s. He had
ostonishlng suggestions about food.
He would have liked to build a food
trench in which they might hid#
from the missiles of misfortune. The
fact that this was not a lunch, and
need not be hurried, became some
thing to consider and point out.
Jo Ellen s announcement that she
was not hungry, disappointed him. He
would have preferred to see her eat a
fortifying meal. The fact that she
ordered little and ate less gave her
an effect of fragility. She was not
fragile and he hated any such sug
gestion.
"My notion is.” he held forth to her,
"when things are going wrong, stoke
up. When In doubt, eat. People
without enough food inside don’t think
right.”
Jo Ellen smiled at him with a fair
imitation of patience. "I’m trying not
to think,” she said.
"Maybe that isn't bad, either. A
r~---“ '
Neu) York
-•Day by Day
_y
By O. O. MTNTYRE.
New York, Aug. 25.—A page from
the diary of a modern Samuel Pepys:
Up to breakfast with Houdinl and
looked through his library as brave
as ever I saw and he gave me an au
tographed copy of his book "A Mag
ician Among the Spirits.
Back to my chambers and worked
awhile and then with my wife, poor
wretch, to the dressmaking places
and enjoyed it too, seeking ail the
fine ladies in their fine feathered
frocks. But. I-ord, the prices!
Then to Will Hogg’s and talked
awhile, but he fell asleep in the midst
of an adventure I was relating so
away to play bottle pool with some
roysterers and won almost a pound.
In evening to see Eva Tanguay
whom I had not seen in 10 years and
still enjoyed her screeching and mus
cular flibbergibbets, but do not for
the life of me know why, unless be
cause it is such jovial vulgarity. So
home and to bed.
A keen woman reviewer recently
went by appointment to talk to one
of the glorified movie queens. The
movie star failed to keep not only
this appointment but another. The
third was finally made and the Inter
viewer waited for two hours and fin
ally sent In a caustic note. The star
came out with profuse apologies:
"You know, my dear," she cooed,
"I'm just a temperamental actress."
“You are neither temperamental
nor an actress, and goodby,” said
the interviewer and departed,
Tt seems to me less ability is re
quired in movie acting than almost
anything I know save perhaps wash
ing dishes, or writing newspaper col
umns. Yet around no class of people
do more false assumptions cluster
than movie folks. The director pulls
the string and they become mere
automatons. All that Is needed to ex
pose the hollowness of the ancient
delusion that movie players show or
iginality is to visit a few motion pic
ture studios while films are being
made.
Not that I believe all movie play
ers are morons and cretins. Quits a
number of them are good friend* of
mins. I have found any number un
usually bright, witty and well educa
ted. Yet I have never found one who
didn't somehow or other acquire an
exaggerated idea of hi* or her acting
value. In the end it becomes a sort
of immaculate aloofness toward ordi
nary people—the people who really
make up their audiences and pay the
high salaries. The player doesn't be
lie vs there Is any other art but his
■—the female of the species suffers the
same delusions of grandeur. She pit
ies the rabble from on high.
"Camqo" McWorthy for years made
a good living selling jewelry on the
instillment plat* to burlesque girls
J>ater ho expanded his business to
girls of musical comedy and vaude
ville nnd in the past. 10 years has
amassed a fori one. Ormind is now
being broken on Seventh avenue for
the McWorthy building which is a
monument to the honesty of stage
girls. McWorthy is building it on the
profits accruing from trusting them.
He says he has rarely been defraud
ed. Sometimes there would he lapses of
payments for five years, but in
most Instances the girl* would hunt
him up and settle the score. Me
Worthy, te a dapper fellow about 60.
He wears the smartest clothes of
Broadway pattern and Is given to
wearing cameos, a custom which
gave him hi* nickname He has mar.
rted three women of the stage but
dlvoreed eaeh. "They are fine friends,
but poor wlvee I found," he said.
(Copyright, l*5(.)
person can think themselves Into—
into most anything. But I don't need
to say that to you. I don’t say It
to hear myself talk either. What I
mean Is that—well', we've got to
think about something, haven't we?
I guess that's so. We can’t just
stop the machinery. The wheels get
to going round whether we want them
to or not. Mine went whizzing this
morning on the train. Hell’s bells, I
said, this girl—O I was oft for fair,
I can tell you. And when I got at
him—there he was, out on the roof
with a story magazine. I said to my
self. he's reading some fool yarn about
love—and him, what a mess he's made,
of it. That's what I thought—for a
second. Then when he looked at me
—God! what a W'ay of looking! How
could he change so? Why, he looks
—you know, he knocked me off my
pins. It seems to me he has the same
eyes. Maybe that's It—the same eyes,
but—anyway, he Isn't there. Sounds
as If I was describing him—as If you
didn't know. Not seeing him for a
while makes a difference. Sort of
hits you. The worst was the way he
looked at me—as if he was afraid.
Not exactly plain fright. I don’t sup
pose he was really afraid. It wasn't
that. It might be lt wasn’t seeing me
when he didn’t expect to, but some
thing I made him think of, auddenly.
Afterward, when he was shaking
hands, and I was pulling up one of
those roof chairs beside him, he
seemed more like himself. And I
didn’t waste any time. It was a man
toman thing, I told him. We'd bet
ter have it out. Somehow I knew
he'd lay his cards down. I didn't
need any tricks. I didn't spring any
surprise—any more than telling him
I’d heard something, and how about
It?
Al nr!fi ne oiinKea. xviubi ji«? icn
me? Was it all up? I could see that.
Perhaps he'd stopped going back to
that affair—going back to say it. He
couldn’t help going back. The ghost
of it he carried around would keep
reminding him. Hut he might have
thought he was through telling the
story. You would expect It to hurt,
and you would expect a man to wish
he could shovel the dirt over it and
he through—through with all but the
ghost. I understand that. I told him
ao. But there was one telling he had
left out. If you hod to live with the
ghost you had a right to be told. It
was bad business to let you get it
from somebody else. And this had
happened.
" ‘Not? Arnold?’ he gasped at me.
You would think that skyscraper had
begun to crack open.
"No, not Arnold I said. He ought
to know there were plenty of others.
Anyway, you had been told, and it
was pretty rough to get it that way.
He sat there blinking, with the tears
running down and dropping off his
chin."
"Tell me this,” asked Jo Ellen.
"Does she know?"
"Yes. She knows. She didn't know
nt first. He told the old man. There
was no way out of that. But they
fixed it up not to tell her. That didn't
work at all. When she began talk
ing about what the government ought
to do, and having Arnold go after the
records so they could put in a claim,
and so on, never letting up on what
an outrage it was, there was nothing
else to do but tell her. And there's
where you got the mother of it. She
stuck to him. You have to give her
credit for that. A lot of credit. She's
no weak sister. Of course, she would
stick to him. Why not? He was
smashed, wasn't he? A mother
doesn't ask how the son Is smashed
before she does anything."
Jo Ellen detected a moral. Her
eyes were fixed absently upon the
smoky vista of the restaurant.
“A wife might be mean enough to
ask," she said.
“O the mother asked! I guess she
asked enough. But it wasn’t a bar
gain. See? Not a bargain. She was
bound to be for him—-all the sadder
case. No matter how it happened,
there he was, smashed, finished. If
he hadn't had that fall, in Just that
way, on the day he was married—''
"Then she wouldn’t have hated
me.”
Bngert faltered and gathered him
self again. "I don't say she hates
anybody—unless It might be that
Frenchman.”
“And the French girl.” Jo Ellen
flung the words, and Bogert gazed
uneasily at the disturbed lips
"She'd have to hate them Sure.
It’s so easy to got up a ha’e. But
how do we know—about anything?
That girl. What do we know about
her? You might say she was to
blame, because she knew something
and didn't tell It—she knew something
the father had said. If she had told
Marty, he might—well, he might slm
ply not have been there. He wouldn't
have been there, he says. He doesn't
rharge it all up to the girl. I'll say
that for him He takes his man s
share. I guess he knows he has to.
Anyway, he takes It. He aeted like a
fool. She wasn't even pretty, he says.
. . . But there's no us# going over
Movie of a Golfer and a Heel Print By Briggs
lets Co or /s prptty
O^C ST*»a>(<;mx For
" HEM - Mem - msm - 7U/vr
(V/\S A. PEACH- IT OU<THT
To BE.NEXT To The piaI"
DISCOVERS Ball ir
HCPL PRINT in-i TRAP
JUST.3HORT Of <3WETCa
_ A
“Tack of Yoo« hard
LUCK f SOME ELEPHANT
HAS 'A» XU'S.
Trap "• BRinC MG
Mr ^COOP'^O
,ROW"
WU . “«* 7 ^. V r S « // .
- I had a Good CMAMCt
To BUST EICHTy- tJOUJ
I have To Get tM The
ONLV HEEL. PPIMT OM
ft aw H"*’1-1'
, t
i
news up
ABIE THE AGENT Drawn for The Omaha Bee by Hershfield ^
Adding Insult to Injury.
4
all that. When the father troke In
to where they were ... It was fright
ful. 1 think the maniac must have
thought he killed him. He used some
thing like a butcher’s cleaver, but no
body seems to know Just what It was,
Arnold Pearson—he saw the fathei
running, with his face working hor
--—
rlbly—they never did find him. poor
devil. Good runners in that family
—the girl ran, too—out of a bark
door. And there was Marty, with an
old woman bending over him. when
the boys arrived. The surgeon
thought he was don$ for—”
Bogert rleaed his fist, and looked
jt It as If it were an exhibit.
"I'm telling it, Jo Ellen, because
pcu wouldn't want to hear him tell it
—not now. I don't know that he
ought to have told me. He might
have said, ‘Damn you, look at me.
i got it all. I’m paying. Why should
f have to go through the thing again
for anybody?' Of course. that
wouldn't be having It quite straight.
He isn’t getting it all. You come
In. I told him that was why I was
there. ‘You might figure it out.' I
said, ‘that you didn't have to tell her
because you thought you were all
right. All right but the limp. It
was rather dirty to let. her think the
limp meant a shell wound. All the
same a Rood many men would have
done what you did on the theory that
the slate’s washed clean when a man
marries. Of course, It Isn’t washed
clean, but we men have been able
to put that over. Most women don't
aek a thing. They're satlefled to < n
new book* and *tnrt even. When (
hroke down, all that wa* chan.
You couldn't wipe that off the el < ’
Hell, no! It wa* a different thi ~
from that minute. It would be lit
being cut again to have to tell her.
(To Be Continued Tomorrow)
THE NEBBS beautiful northfield
Directed for The Omaha Bee by Sol Hess
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DlxlllUinU Ul r JT\ 1 I IJUI\ U. S. Patent OINn PAGE OF COLORS IN THE SUNDAY BEE (Copyright 1924)
_ ________. - - - 1 —1 —
I ) ILL SURPRISE MAC.CIE
THIS MORNtN’ OT C'TTIN
UPBEroRE SHE DOES*
SHE WOl ASLEEP.WHEN I
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NOW SHE'LL Ks U
Think i wu'Z
in earlt: ^
OH! t>0 IT
1*3 'YOU -
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HOME AT TEWS HOOR OF
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| © ' 921 »Y IwT'C
JERRY ON THE JOB honor where honor is due. Urawn for«i"!Ur?£» y
_, ___^ ~ -■ - •. ■ »__ _ _ - - - ~
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