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About The Omaha morning bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 1922-1927 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 10, 1925)
“THE GOLDEN BED” By WALLACE IRWIN. Produced as a Paramount Picture by Cecile B. DeMille From a Screen Adaptation by Jeanie Macpherson. CCopyrlaht. l#24) V._____ (Continued from Yesterday.) There was considerable worldly pride in this. "I been in the trade a coupla years now, workin' between here and Indianapolis. Too bad you didn't get hold o’ some o’ my Grade A. Remember that sauterne you bought for your big party at the Ham ilton'* That was mine." "What have you done with my clothes?" Full consciousness had tome upon Admah and with it panic. "Sent 'em over to the pants presser across the street. I'll say they need ed it. Say—" "What time is It?" Very deliberately Mr. Hemingway drew back a blue cuff. "It's jest eventeen minutes of five —I'm hoot four minutes fast, so that makes it—" "Five? Five in the afternoon?' Admah had swung his legs out of bed and sat open-mouthed, horror stricken. "Sure. You been hittin' the hav since four this mornln' when 1 brought you home in a taxi. Look here. Ad! What’s eatin’ you now?” What was rating him? Furies, per haps, who overtake and gnaw the sluggard who sleeps and leaves his one poor hope to float away upon the ebbing tide. He threw himself hack on the creaking springs and covered his head. * "Sav, I guess I'd better go git a doctor," decided Elmer "Sometimes that Class B hootch hits 'em, pretty hard." “For God's sake let me alone, groaned the stricken man. "Don't talk any more. Let me he." Elmer had taken a step toward the door when Admah called after him: . "Evening paper—get me one! Quick!” He heard Elmer's footsteps rlatter lng down the stairs, and during a timeless interval lav there, cold and - movfless as some Colossus who, hav ing fallen, can do nothing to knit to gether the broken stoims that once composed his giant statm-e. His eyes, his heart, his limbs were broken stones. Stone thoughts were in his head. Then again footsteps were on the earpetless stairs. "Show it to me!" he commanded .hollowly when his friend returned. Elmer uncreased the Evening Demo crat at the front page and held It up to he read. The news was con spicuously spread and Illustrated by a portrait. HOLTZ OUSTED FROM PRESIDENCY OF T. & P NEWTON B. CANFIELD TO SUCCEED HIM. Colon M Attei-h rv's Secretary Chosen A Per Stormy Session. Admah lay a long time studying »hn handsome picture of Newton 13. \anfield. Then he smiled a quiet uir.ile, for he could afford his Joke, ---------"\ | New York J - Jay by Day By O. O. MTNTYRE. New York. Feb. 9.—Wives who hop jm tearoom to tearoom and hus mds who are nervous wrecks. This the stamp of successful New orkers. Most husbands are slaving ->r the Big Getaway when they can •etlre to ease and plenty. Then they Ko In the harness. In the evenings the wives drag 4he husbands to cafes and theaters. There you see them In listless man ner trying to be entertained and wishing all the while they were home In bed. Their boredom is complete. Their heads are full of figures. The only time they brighten up Is when the talk veers to some se cluded place or the villa in the south of France. Their goal Is to be far from director's meetings, telephone calls and conferences. But It Is the old. old story—the lure of gold. One often wonders Just exactly what the higji-powered money getter is really getting out of life. Very few seem genuinely happy. You never hear them laugh with that abandon that Is so characteristic of the real happy person. Instead there Is a quick smile— and a return to mental figuring. If they go away for a rest they worry •bout how things are getting along at the office and rarely do they stay away as long as they had Intended. The wives do not seem harrassed by the climb upward. Wealth brings to them a desire for social recog nltlon and social recognition means asking a lot of people to do things they do not want to do. And beauty parlor* must not be neglected. ' *• It seems to me every New Yorker who Is successful Is discontented. Franklin said that discontents arise from our desires oftener than from our wants. Nothing Is so tragic ss discontent. Still I suppose If Colum hus had been a contented man I would not be writing this. The precocious daughter of a suc cessful New Y'ork wife rather cramp ed her style at a little afternoon gathering where she accompanied her mother. A gentleman was mak Ing her mother laugh rather uproar iously. The child ran up to him with: "Don’t make mother laugh too much. She Is not used to her false teeth." Now successful women who have made their own way strike me as being vastly different from men. There is, for Instance, Maybelle Man tling, a young girl who came from Texas make her own way. In a short time she opened one of th* most exclusive dressmaking salons In town. In a full page Interview In a New York newspaper she savs: "I do not believe anyone ran be success ful nnless thev sre happy. If money making or achievement destroy hap piness I want to return to the ging ham wrapper and rocking chair on the front porch of a small Texas , town—at least there they are hap py.” "What would you do," asks a New York editorial writer, "If someone dropped $f,n,000 In your lap and said, ‘This Is youA<?' " If he's asking me. I'll say I would Just keep on Whittling and wall for the keeper to eopio around and take him back home. Sudden wealth Is very dangerous. A woman I know cam* into a huge and quick fortune. She bobbed her hair, shortened her skirt* and went In for a face lifting operation that disfigured her for Ilf*. — C (Cnjftt If hip »fl.l , 4 since the T. & P. was no longer any affair of his. So that had been their game. General Bentley had been merely a smoke screen to hide the real enemy, who was Sim Canfield's nephew. "I wonder if a little drink wouldn't do you good?” Elmer was asking, his head to one side. "I reckon not," sighed ^dmah. "I’ve tried it." No city quite outgrows the village gossip; at least London and New York and Paris never have. And Admah's city, which in his lifetime had bar tered charm for size, still retained its whispering galleries where ancient Indies could sit with heads together. For in the Day of the Cave and Hein deer it was written that the old men of the tribe should make the laws and the old women make the mis chief. Quite naturally, then, the old women sat on the case of Admah Holtz and Flora Lee Peake, drawing the rainbow threads of romance back and forth, in and out, weaving a series of handsome tapestries which, like many other objects of art, were remarkable for their color and design rather than their historical accuracy Satsuma disapproved of Flora Lee, but few condemned her; Satsuma is staunch in Its caste feeling. Admah Holtz, who had been received under protest, was rejected with a savage joy. Miss Sunshine Buckner held to the theory that he beat Flora Lee— not that she didn't richly deserve it, but the Holtz.es were dreadful people from somewhere across the River. Mrs. Eustone made the valuable dis covery that Admah’s mother had died in the Home of the Feeble Minded and that Admah had been bartender in a roadhouse. Mrs. Atterbury re mained contemptuously aloof. She thought as her husband did; to him Admah Holtz represented an In vest ment which he h id found dangerous and sold out, fortunately, in time. Not long after the T. & P. had changed its presidency the Evening Democrat published a fair-seeming article which did not meet the appro val of Satsuma; and the Evening Democrat had been taken over re cently by a Yankee publisher who bought newspapers as he once had bought chain groceries. His heart's desire was Standardization. Only In local news did he permit variety, and that he chose to make frivolous, sen sational, pictorial. If the old Eve ning Democrat had been dull and stately the new Evening Democrat was bright and restless. It was. In fact, no gentleman. "Tut-tut!" moaned Miss Sunshine Buckner one afternoon over her glass of stierrv, which she drank alone since .Timmy Wilder had moved to Chicago. "What can people be think ing of to allow such a paper?" But the item, on its surface, was innocent enough. They had repub lished the portrait printed at the time of Flora Lee’s engagement to San Pilar. An adjacent headline in formed the reader that Mrs. Holtz Failed to Admit Rumor, and below there ran a somewhat idle account of the beautiful Mrs. Holtz's pleasant stay at French Lick Springs. It was a ragged-edged. short-lined, ecstatic article, suggestive of vers libre. Her costumes were especially poetic. She entertained many charming people, mostly unknown to her home town. And what were her plans? She had none. Was it true that she had been separated from her husband, Admah R Holtz, so suddenly ousted from the T. & P? After her reply, the reporter had retained sufficient cour age to Inquire why Mr. Holtz's house on the River Boulevard had been offered for sale. She was unable to satisfy his curiosity. Through some carelessness in the composing room, no doubt, another Item was given undue prominence on the same page. Mr. Hunter O'Neill had failed to qualify for a golf tourna ment at French Lick Springs. He might have gone out in search of Flora Lee or. as an animal im pulse had once urged him in the days when he had still an animal’s vigor, for revenge upon Hunter O'Nell!. But the days and weeks dragged on with nothing more definite than in his mind a promise to do something abon' it sometime. At present he wanted to be left alone, to leave other peo ple alone. Into the details of set tling his debts and Flora Lee’s he put all the energy he could summon. Before he decided to sell his remain ing stocks T. & P common had taken another drop. He paid In full for the boathouse which he had promised the sycamore Club, then he resigned, as he did from his other clubs. He settled with Cummins for the brace let and sent checks to several Eastern dressmakers, a landscape-gardener and a Chicago firm which sold Italian reproductions. The sale of his house he entrusted to a real estate broker. Arthur de Long, who was making a great success of Hersinger's, drove rather a close bargain for the place, lie agreed to take over the mortgages and lo furnish a watchman until the New Year when the transfer would be made. Such details as these were Involved In ringing down the curtain on his pretentious drama. Admah Holtz, whose mother had taught him to hate debt, hated it to the end. He closed his books with a pitiful little balance in the bank and a pitiful little belief in the destiny which he had once thought so tine. A man past forty, having tasted luxury and success and the possession of a beautiful woman, he was poorly fitted for a beginning at the small end of the town. For a time he lived in the cheapest room it> the Hamilton, dodging in and our for fear people would slop him and want to talk. Shortly after his failure he had re reived a note from Margaret, and the very character of her writing paper had proclaimed her advancement in the world. "The Woman's Syndicate" ber handsome stationery was en graved and there was mention of her offices in the Principality Building. "There must be something I can do," she had written, "and. I siia’i fee) dreadfully if you don't ask me. What ever has happened, I know It isn’t your fault. Won’t you come to me or let come to you? Biease let’s see what we can make of it all. I’m nl the Westmore Apartments now, if you can come in the evening. I do so want to see you, Admah!" Feeling that he should have been glad of her success, he fought In vain :nst a new sensitiveness. She was going up In the world. The Peakes were coming back. . . . Margaret war again proving the character that had made the Peakes great; poor Flora Lee was just what greatness had made (f the Peakes. His note to Margaret was short, kindly and Impersonal. • He had thought of her often he said, hut there had been so much to do that he hadn't had time to see anybody. Put he'd surely come and see her just as soon as he pot bark. fiot hack from what? He couldn’t say because he didn't know. Finally he decided to accept Uncle Lafc's invitation and go to the hog farm for an indefinite stay Cap tain Holtz, in his own rough lan guage. convinced him that the coun try air would do him good; he was welcome to stay*as long as he cared to. When this offer came Admnh w-.-is little richer than he had been the day he left the workhouse and planned to buy a discarded lunch wagon. In life-force lie was much poorer, for his dream was spent, hfs pride was broken and success had lnsr its magic. He rode out in Uncle Lnfe's Ford, and all the way pic tured himself as a hop farmer, grow ing very fat among his swine, eat ing and drinking more than he should, chewing tobacco and never coming to town. That would be a logical end of Admah Holtz, less dra niatic than sulciite, but more comfort able. The hog farm Idea held him for onlv a lit'le. Like everything else ,n life Uncle l.afe anil Aunt Brownie seemed to have flattened to the taste Captain Holtz's thunderous stories and philosophizings, which had onct amused his nephew by the hour, now bored hint with their garrulity and repetitiousness. Lute was showing h’s age. and' tiie death of his son— the one who had gone east to fall in the button business—had dulled the old man's wit. Gout, which had nipped. Aunt Brownie's joints for many years, now began to gnaw in earnest. She kept her chair a great deal of the time, and like her hus band site seemed to be droning for ever about things that mattered not at all. Adtnah had come in Hell's Handing planning to live the life of a farmer, up with the lark, to bed with the chickens. But the city habit had grown on hint to punish his early ris ing with sick headaches. If he went to bed before midnight it was to twist and turn until dawn, plagued by his horrid thoughts. The Captain must have seen his mistake in inviting his nephew to the farm, for one morn ing he came waddling down the path with an armful of fresh corn fodder and talked to Adtnah as man to man. ''Son,” he concluded gently, ‘I guess you’d do a lot better in town This place must took pretty slow' to a young fella. Why don’t you go round and look up Jo? He’s stopped jest about where you dropped him. and you and him ought to he able to do something with that store o’ his.’ When her nephew left, an hour later. Aunt Brownie kissed him and cried a Utile—-dm-e Bert's death she had become rather lachrymose—and then old Hate took hint in his Ford as far as the Jnterurban. Adniah came into the Red Store just as Jo and Myrtle and Henry, their oldest boy. were preparing for the noon trade. The window looked flyspecked and cluttered. From behind the counter where Jo was leaning over an ice cream container and Myrtle was serving a solitary customer, there came a smell of sourness and of mildew. "Hello, Ad," Jo greeted him, look ing up with a smile that seemed to share the sourness and the mildew. The customer, who was young and gaudy, never raised her eyes from the straw she was sucking. Admali Holtz had ceased to be news to the common people. Hut from Myrtle and young Henry the reaction was sprightly enough. Henry dropned a spoon into thf ice bln' and mentioned that famous amour, the love ot Mike. Myrtle hounded round the counter and em braced her wandering brother-in-law Admali hail an Impression of a hlowsy middle-aged woman with n floppy person. Her hands were still wet with the soapy water in which she had been washing soda glasses. "Well.” drawled Admah with a sickly humor when he had been led to the upstairs apartment, where the Jo Holtzes now lived in Intimate con tact with their business. "I've stayed with Uncle Lafe as long as he d stand me." Both .Jo and Myrtle proved surpris Ingly kind. Myrtle's kindness, he felt, was founded on the luxurious joy of patronizing a relative whom she had long en\ied for his greatness in the world. But .lo betrayed a gen erosity quite unsuspected In his nar o\v heart and mind, "J^ook yuh. Ad." he said bashfully when Myrtle had left the raoom, "part o' this here busines* always ha* been vours. It didn't seem much to you once. 1 reckon. But if we get to gether the way we ust to we couM shore make things hum." "That's righ’ nice of you," drawled A dm ah wearily. "Jtut 1 don't know Do you suppose Myrtle would want me to have a room here and eat with you folks?" Myrtle's consent obtained. Jo's offer was left In a state of suspemle animation. Adniah was allotted a room next to an alley; he was sup po ci! to make his own bed, taut he never dhl. Sometimes he crept unde; rhe blankets through the same fold that he had left open when he go) oat In the morning. Sometinn Myrtle would relent and "straightf up" when lie was away on one of h)s Interminable walks. once he caught her scolding to heisel? anti calling him "shiftless." The artjec tive, applied by Myrtle to Admah. amused hint rather wickedly. He walked a great deal, choosing obscure streets where he would be !e :et ll|.-e|y to encounter people whom he had known. In the few crowded blocks which he must traverse on his way to esctfpe he would go rap idly, his eyes on the sidewalk. This was his ostrich fashion of hiding from tho world; and few pcopi . nlzed him. The gossips had fed on him and thrown the scraps aside. — After his first month over the Red Front Store his sister-in-law took to bullying. At first she tested him by timid jabs and pinches, then finding that the family giant was broken site sneered in his face and mocked him of his fall. He slept and ate and smoked and walked and read; dull business for a dulled man. flood books bored him. so he borrowed trash from a circu lating library on the border of Dark town, Now am! then lie would ex change with Henry, whose year In a freshwater rolleie had given him V* tlp save an abominable taste in cig irets and ration. Admah looked on 1 |oprv wl<h an easy tolerance, but voided him because the boy was in line' t.. p --oniae his parents. (To It*- t'ent'niu-d Tomorrow.1 We kri w not win the av’rage man Doth si "IT hi.- oi"maeh all he can; Then puff and blow and grunt and wherze And ch.-i -.-e it off m Bright's disease. Said old Doctor Pew. It's my observation,” “That hmilth conservation Is practiced lay few." i- ' , * y By Briggs Tmat MICH 3 Feues »A/A3 AHOOOD AGAI Ai ToMtGMT J To See MAC-SIF. GEOUMM -/ Jne S PULLIW' Hi 3 LUG _y- j 'ill oer- - l tfT(—/ (* - - > | f |\|Am- >r -POtMvl T MA/e A > Rki. of rifrF«rwce To Me ( w/M£TMisr» it closes or not '-t i <sf r my pav wight aLOajc» V_it ui. <we u'- a chawcf t0 . T>>^ \ i a •< i •iaj a * ruL> mo'/ fj J t ■ r \*/\V, /|T' z' THE NEBBS IF I BUT KNEW. Directed for The Omaha Bee by bol Hess /'TwKr S «>usr what l M\Ght\ ) expect rftOM a Guy luce / YOU APTER 1 RACK *AY \ I ?>RA\KlS PORA SCHEME TO < \ GET YOOP BROTHER-lM-LAW) ^ OUT or the HOUSE y-"' /rrs the omlv Time vkj mv ufe that i \ , f\ uEv/Ea thousht or that owe *. /TOOK MOuR ADVICE AWO t GOT AuLTwE \ / HE GWES ME CPED\T TCP MORE \ worst or rr. uro had the Small-po* x \ braimSThakj i ve got. im mot awo knew right anwav i Diomt ha\je it. 1 l MuCH or a aEAOEQ or CHARACTER vf i vAjfvs suat voo ooodle-crossed me / VA_ but evem from a reap, view AMO TtPPEO H\M OFF - KEEP IMG ME »M S (\X1 A\*ThA*T FEU Ow LOOKS LUCE A BED three DAVS -TOua UWVFE LoOULO GO J > . W//V W/AUOM3 PvTK \30THE UMOEaTAKERS TO OO SOME _x SHQPP'MG ^-x I Co /x Crv'ALso^j. RPIlVr.INn I IP FATHFR R,,l,UrH , SEE jiggs and MAGGIE in full Drawn for The Omaha Bee by McManus DIxilWlIllVl vl r rt 1 nc<l\ U. S. Patent Ofllea PAGE OF COLORS IN THE SUNDAY BEE ICopvrisht 1925) JERRY ON THE JOB HARDLY ANY USE TRYING Dr,wn for Th' °"'aba Bee by Hoban <Copvrigru ! (\nevt S?skplv (soT-ro Get Some] ABIE THE AGENT ■ Drawn for The Omaha Bre by Hershfield Rating. <~-rgidi.-csu.nc.... —a ----^=z *a=r -r - / , _ l t>OK}'T \ ' AnTTHIM<* to THink u:E Report at this should <*iv;e \ MEETING MISTER AfcANQ'JtYTO •"'\ k-ABi&BlE ?? UjAV-TER Kik^SLEv 1_ L v ijohv roo'r qiv;3 i ll ywhok \t A A *ANQU?V YO VuiACTW Kinc«cv= RsrcRT at the jj ^-1 ‘jBCr MEFriKHr " A" V PROPOSE WE qiVJE \ HIM A LUiNC Vi EON INSTEAD * HE AIN'T PROMINENT ENOUGH TET FCR AN EVENING C1MP1 tv ■■