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Love Conquers All

<h1 class="tei tei-head">Love Conquers All</h1> By Robert C. Benchley Illustrated By Gluyas Williams Printed October, 1922 <hr class="page" /> <ANTIMG src="images/image01.png" alt="They look him over as if he were a fresh air child being given a day's outing." class="tei tei-figure" /> They look him over as if he were a fresh air child being given a day's outing. <hr class="page" /> <h1 class="tei tei-head">Acknowledgment</h1> The author thanks the editors of the following publications for their permission to print the articles in this book: Life, The New York World, The New York Tribune, The Detroit Athletic Club News, and The Consolidated Press Association. <hr class="page" /> <h1 class="tei tei-head">Contents</h1><ul> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Acknowledgment</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Contents</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Illustrations</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">The Benchley-Whittier Correspondence</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Family Life in America</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">Part 1</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">Part 2</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">Part 3</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">This Child Knows the Answer - Do You?</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Rules and Suggestions for Watching Auction Bridge</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">Number Who May Watch</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">Preliminaries</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">Procedure</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">A Christmas Spectacle</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">How to Watch a Chess-match</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">How to Find a Game to Watch</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">The Details of the Game</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Watching Baseball</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">How to be a Spectator at Spring Planting</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">The Manhattador</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">What to do While the Family is Away</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">"Roll Your Own"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Do Insects Think?</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">The Score in the Stands</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Mid-winter Sports</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Reading the Funnies Aloud</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Opera Synopses</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">Die Meister-Genossenschaft</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">Il Minnestrone</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">Lucy de Lima</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">The Young Idea's Shooting Gallery</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Polyp with a Past</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Holt! Who Goes There?</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">Bathing</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">Clothing</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">Weight</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">Fresh Air</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">Development</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">Feeding</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">The Committee on the Whole</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Noting an Increase in Bigamy</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">The Real Wiglaf - Man and Monarch</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Facing the Boys' Camp Problem</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">All About the Silesian Problem</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">"Happy the Home Where Books Are Found"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">When Not in Rome, Why Do as the Romans Did?</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">The Tooth, The Whole Tooth, and Nothing But the Tooth</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Malignant Mirrors</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">The Power of the Press</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Home for the Holidays</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">How to Understand International Finance</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Twas the Night Before Summer</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Welcome Home - and Shut Up!</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Animal Stories - I</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Animal Storeis - II</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">The Tariff Unmasked</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Literary Department</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">"Take Along a Book"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Confessions of a Chess Champion</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">"Rip Van Winkle"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Literary Lost and Found Department</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">"Old Black Tillie"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">"Victor Hugo's Death"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">"I'm Sorry That I Spelt the Word"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">"God's in His Heaven"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">"She Dwelt Beside"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">"The Golden Wedding"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 2em;">Answers</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">"Dark Water"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">The New Time-Table</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Mr. Bok's Americanization</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Zane Grey's Movie</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Suppressing "Jurgen"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Anti-Ibáñez</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">On Bricklaying</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">"American Anniversaries"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">A Week-end with Wells</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">About Portland Cement</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Open Bookcases</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Trout-fishing</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">"Scouting for Girls"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">How to Sell Goods</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">"You!"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">The Catalogue School</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Effective House Organs</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Advice to Writers</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">"The Effective Speaking Voice"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Those Dangerously Dynamic British Girls</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Books and Other Things</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">"Measure Your Mind"</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">The Brow-Elevation in Humor</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Business Letters</li> <li style="margin: 0em 0em;">Notes</li> </ul> <hr class="page" /> <h1 class="tei tei-head">I.—THE BENCHLEY-WHITTIER CORRESPONDENCE</h1> Old scandals concerning the private life of Lord Byron have been revived with the recent publication of a collection of his letters. One of the big questions seems to be: Did Byron send Mary Shelley's letter to Mrs. R.B. Hoppner? Everyone seems greatly excited about it. Lest future generations be thrown into turmoil over my correspondence after I am gone, I want right now to clear up the mystery which has puzzled literary circles for over thirty years. I need hardly add that I refer to what is known as the "Benchley-Whittier Correspondence." The big question over which both my biographers and Whittier's might possibly come to blows is this, as I understand it: Did John Greenleaf Whittier ever receive the letters I wrote to him in the late Fall of 1890? If he did not, who did? And under what circumstances were they written? I was a very young man at the time, and Mr. Whittier was, naturally, very old. There had been a meeting of the Save-Our-Song-Birds Club in old Dane Hall (now demolished) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Members had left their coats and hats in the check-room at the foot of the stairs (now demolished). In passing out after a rather spirited meeting, during the course of which Mr. Whittier and Dr. Van Blarcom had opposed each other rather violently over the question of Baltimore orioles, the aged poet naturally was the first to be helped into his coat. In the general mix-up (there was considerable good-natured fooling among the members as they left, relieved as they were from the strain of the meeting) Whittier was given my hat by mistake. When I came to go, there was nothing left for me but a rather seedy gray derby with a black band, containing the initials "J.G.W." As the poet was visiting in Cambridge at the time I took opportunity next day to write the following letter to him: <blockquote style="margin: 2em 4em" class="tei tei-quote"> Cambridge, Mass. November 7, 1890. Dear Mr. Whittier: I am afraid that in the confusion following the Save-Our-Song-Birds meeting last night, you were given my hat by mistake. I have yours and will gladly exchange it if you will let me know when I may call on you. May I not add that I am a great admirer of your verse? Have you ever tried any musical comedy lyrics? I think that I could get you in on the ground floor in the show game, as I know a young man who has written several songs which E.E. Rice has said he would like to use in his next comic opera—provided he can get words to go with them. But we can discuss all this at our meeting, which I hope will be soon, as your hat looks like hell on me. Yours respectfully, ROBERT C. BENCHLEY. </blockquote> I am quite sure that this letter was mailed, as I find an entry in my diary of that date which reads: "Mailed a letter to J.G. Whittier. Cloudy and cooler." Furthermore, in a death-bed confession, some ten years later, one Mary F. Rourke, a servant employed in the house of Dr. Agassiz, with whom Whittier was bunking at the time, admitted that she herself had taken a letter, bearing my name in the corner of the envelope, to the poet at his breakfast on the following morning. But whatever became of it after it fell into his hands, I received no reply. I waited five days, during which time I stayed in the house rather than go out wearing the Whittier gray derby. On the sixth day I wrote him again, as follows: <blockquote style="margin: 2em 4em" class="tei tei-quote"> Cambridge, Mass. Nov. 14, 1890. Dear Mr. Whittier: How about that hat of mine? Yours respectfully, ROBERT C. BENCHLEY. </blockquote> I received no answer to this letter either. Concluding that the good gray poet was either too busy or too gosh-darned mean to bother with the thing, I myself adopted an attitude of supercilious unconcern and closed the correspondence with the following terse message: <blockquote style="margin: 2em 4em" class="tei tei-quote"> Cambridge, Mass. December 4, 1890. Dear Mr. Whittier: It is my earnest wish that the hat of mine which you are keeping will slip down over your eyes some day, interfering with your vision to such an extent that you will walk off the sidewalk into the gutter and receive painful, albeit superficial, injuries. Your young friend, ROBERT C. BENCHLEY. </blockquote> Here the matter ended so far as I was concerned, and I trust that biographers in the future will not let any confusion of motives or misunderstanding of dates enter into a clear and unbiased statement of the whole affair. We must not have another Shelley-Byron scandal. <hr class="page" /> <h1 class="tei tei-head">II—FAMILY LIFE IN AMERICA</h1> <h2 class="tei tei-head">PART 1</h2> The naturalistic literature of this country has reached such a state that no family of characters is considered true to life which does not include at least two hypochondriacs, one sadist, and one old man who spills food down the front of his vest. If this school progresses, the following is what we may expect in our national literature in a year or so. The living-room in the Twillys' house was so damp that thick, soppy moss grew all over the walls. It dripped on the picture of Grandfather Twilly that hung over the melodeon, making streaks down the dirty glass like sweat on the old man's face. It was a mean face. Grandfather Twilly had been a mean man and had little spots of soup on the lapel of his coat. All his children were mean and had soup spots on their clothes. Grandma Twilly sat in the rocker over by the window, and as she rocked the chair snapped. It sounded like Grandma Twilly's knees snapping as they did whenever she stooped over to pull the wings off a fly. She was a mean old thing. Her knuckles were grimy and she chewed crumbs that she found in the bottom of her reticule. You would have hated her. She hated herself. But most of all she hated Grandfather Twilly. "I certainly hope you're frying good," she muttered as she looked up at his picture. "Hasn't the undertaker come yet, Ma?" asked young Mrs. Wilbur Twilly petulantly. She was boiling water on the oil-heater and every now and again would spill a little of the steaming liquid on the baby who was playing on the floor. She hated the baby because it looked like her father. The hot water raised little white blisters on the baby's red neck and Mabel Twilly felt short, sharp twinges of pleasure at the sight. It was the only pleasure she had had for four months. "Why don't you kill yourself, Ma?" she continued. "You're only in the way here and you know it. It's just because you're a mean old woman and want to make trouble for us that you hang on." Grandma Twilly shot a dirty look at her daughter-in-law. She had always hated her. Stringy hair, Mabel had. Dank, stringy hair. Grandma Twilly thought how it would look hanging at an Indian's belt. But all that she did was to place her tongue against her two front teeth and make a noise like the bath-room faucet. Wilbur Twilly was reading the paper by the oil lamp. Wilbur had watery blue eyes and cigar ashes all over his knees. The third and fourth buttons of his vest were undone. It was too hideous. He was conscious of his family seated in chairs about him. His mother, chewing crumbs. His wife Mabel, with her stringy hair, reading. His sister Bernice, with projecting front teeth, who sat thinking of the man who came every day to take away the waste paper. Bernice was wondering how long it would be before her family would discover that she had been married to this man for three years. How Wilbur hated them all. It didn't seem as if he could stand it any longer. He wanted to scream and stick pins into every one of them and then rush out and see the girl who worked in his office snapping rubber-bands all day. He hated her too, but she wore side-combs. <h2 class="tei tei-head">PART 2</h2> The street was covered with slimy mud. It oozed out from under Bernice's rubbers in unpleasant bubbles until it seemed to her as if she must kill herself. Hot air coming out from a steam laundry. Hot, stifling air. Bernice didn't work in the laundry but she wished that she did so that the hot air would kill her. She wanted to be stifled. She needed torture to be happy. She also needed a good swift clout on the side of the face. A drunken man lurched out from a door-way and flung his arms about her. It was only her husband. She loved her husband. She loved him so much that, as she pushed him away and into the gutter, she stuck her little finger into his eye. She also untied his neck-tie. It was a bow neck-tie, with white, dirty spots on it and it was wet with gin. It didn't seem as if Bernice could stand it any longer. All the repressions of nineteen sordid years behind protruding teeth surged through her untidy soul. She wanted love. But it was not her husband that she loved so fiercely. It was old Grandfather Twilly. And he was too dead. <h2 class="tei tei-head">PART 3</h2> In the dining-room of the Twillys' house everything was very quiet. Even the vinegar-cruet which was covered with fly-specks. Grandma Twilly lay with her head in the baked potatoes, poisoned by Mabel, who, in her turn had been poisoned by her husband and sprawled in an odd posture over the china-closet. Wilbur and his sister Bernice had just finished choking each other to death and between them completely covered the carpet in that corner of the room where the worn spot showed the bare boards beneath, like ribs on a chicken carcass. Only the baby survived. She had a mean face and had great spillings of Imperial Granum down her bib. As she looked about her at her family, a great hate surged through her tiny body and her eyes snapped viciously. She wanted to get down from her high-chair and show them all how much she hated them. Bernice's husband, the man who came after the waste paper, staggered into the room. The tips were off both his shoe-lacings. The baby experienced a voluptuous sense of futility at the sight of the tipless-lacings and leered suggestively at her uncle-in-law. "We must get the roof fixed," said the man, very quietly. "It lets the sun in." <hr class="page" /> <h1 class="tei tei-head">III—THIS CHILD KNOWS THE ANSWER—DO YOU?</h1> We are occasionally confronted in the advertisements by the picture of an offensively bright-looking little boy, fairly popping with information, who, it is claimed in the text, knows all the inside dope on why fog forms in beads on a woolen coat, how long it would take to crawl to the moon on your hands and knees, and what makes oysters so quiet. The taunting catch-line of the advertisement is: "This Child Knows the Answer—Do You?" and the idea is to shame you into buying a set of books containing answers to all the questions in the world except the question "Where is the money coming from to buy the books?" Any little boy knowing all these facts would unquestionably be an asset in a business which specialized in fog-beads or lunar transportation novelties, but he would be awful to have about the house. "Spencer," you might say to him, "where are Daddy's slippers?" To which he would undoubtedly answer: "I don't know, Dad," (disagreeable little boys like that always call their fathers "Dad" and stand with their feet wide apart and their hands in their pockets like girls playing boys' rôles on the stage) "but I do know this, that all the Nordic peoples are predisposed to astigmatism because of the glare of the sun on the snow, and that, furthermore, if you were to place a common ordinary marble in a glass of luke-warm cider there would be a precipitation which, on pouring off the cider, would be found to be what we know as parsley, just plain parsley which Cook uses every night in preparing our dinner." With little ones like this around the house, a new version of "The Children's Hour" will have to be arranged, and it might as well be done now and got over with. <h2 class="tei tei-head">The Well-Informed Children's Hour</h2> Between the dark and the day-light, When the night is beginning lo lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupation Which is known as the children's hour. 'Tis then appears tiny Irving With the patter of little feet, To tell us that worms become dizzy At a slight application of heat. And Norma, the baby savant, Comes toddling up with the news That a valvular catch in the larynx Is the reason why Kitty mews. "Oh Grandpa," cries lovable Lester, "Jack Frost has surprised us again, By condensing in crystal formation The vapor which clings to the pane!" Then Roger and Lispinard Junior Race pantingly down through the hall To be first with the hot information That bees shed their coats in the Fall. No longer they clamor for stories As they cluster in fun 'round my knee But each little darling is bursting With a story that he must tell me, Giving reasons why daisies are sexless And what makes the turtle so dour; So it goes through the horrible gloaming Of the Well-informed Children's Hour. <hr class="page" /> <h1 class="tei tei-head">IV—RULES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR WATCHING AUCTION BRIDGE</h1> With all the expert advice that is being offered in print these days about how to play games, it seems odd that no one has formulated a set of rules for the spectators. The spectators are much more numerous than the players, and seem to need more regulation. As a spectator of twenty years standing, versed in watching all sports except six-day bicycle races, I offer the fruit of my experience in the form of suggestions and reminiscences which may tend to clarify the situation, or, in case there is no situation which needs clarifying, to make one. In the event of a favorable reaction on the part of the public, I shall form an association, to be known as the National Amateur Audience Association (or the N.A.A.A., if you are given to slang) of which I shall be Treasurer. That's all I ask, the Treasurership. This being an off-season of the year for outdoor sports (except walking, which is getting to have neither participants nor spectators) it seems best to start with a few remarks on the strenuous occupation of watching a bridge game. Bridge-watchers are not so numerous as football watchers, for instance, but they are much more in need of coordination and it will be the aim of this article to formulate a standardized set of rules for watching bridge which may be taken as a criterion for the whole country. <h2 class="tei tei-head">NUMBER WHO MAY WATCH</h2> There should not be more than one watcher for each table. When there are two, or more, confusion is apt to result and no one of the watchers can devote his attention to the game as it should be devoted. Two watchers are also likely to bump into each other as they make their way around the table looking over the players' shoulders. If there are more watchers than there are tables, two can share one table between them, one being dummy while the other watches. In this event the first one should watch until the hand has been dealt and six tricks taken, being relieved by the second one for the remaining tricks and the marking down of the score. <h2 class="tei tei-head">PRELIMINARIES</h2> In order to avoid any charge of signalling, it will be well for the following conversational formula to be used before the game begins: The ring-leader of the game says to the fifth person: "Won't you join the game and make a fourth? I have some work which I really ought to be doing." The fifth person replies: "Oh, no, thank you! I play a wretched game. I'd much rather sit here and read, if you don't mind." To which the ring-leader replies: "Pray do." After the first hand has been dealt, the fifth person, whom we shall now call the "watcher," puts down the book and leans forward in his (or her) chair, craning the neck to see what is in the hand nearest him. The strain becoming too great, he arises and approaches the table, saying: "Do you mind if I watch a bit?" No answer need be given to this, unless someone at the table has nerve enough to tell the truth. <h2 class="tei tei-head">PROCEDURE</h2> The game is now on. The watcher walks around the table, giving each hand a careful scrutiny, groaning slightly at the sight of a poor one and making noises of joyful anticipation at the good ones. Stopping behind an especially unpromising array of cards, it is well to say: "Well, unlucky at cards, lucky in love, you know." This gives the partner an opportunity to judge his chances on the bid he is about to make, and is perfectly fair to the other side, too, for they are not left entirely in the dark. Thus everyone benefits by the remark. <ANTIMG src="images/image02.png" alt="The watcher walks around the table, giving each hand a careful scrutiny." class="tei tei-figure" /> The watcher walks around the table, giving each hand a careful scrutiny. When the bidding begins, the watcher has considerable opportunity for effective work. Having seen how the cards lie, he is able to stand back and listen with a knowing expression, laughing at unjustified bids and urging on those who should, in his estimation, plunge. At the conclusion of the bidding he should say: "Well, we're off!" As the hand progresses and the players become intent on the game, the watcher may be the cause of no little innocent diversion. He may ask one of the players for a match, or, standing behind the one who is playing the hand, he may say: "I'll give you three guesses as to whom I ran into on the street yesterday. Someone you all know. Used to go to school with you, Harry ... Light hair and blue eyes ... Medium build ... Well, sir, it was Lew Milliken. Yessir, Lew Milliken. Hadn't seen him for fifteen years. Asked after you, Harry ... and George too. And what do you think he told me about Chick?" Answers may or may not be returned to these remarks, according to the good nature of the players, but in any event, they serve their purpose of distraction. Particular care should be taken that no one of the players is allowed to make a mistake. The watcher, having his mind free, is naturally in a better position to keep track of matters of sequence and revoking. Thus, he may say: "The lead was over here, George," or "I think that you refused spades a few hands ago, Lillian." Of course, there are some watchers who have an inherited delicacy about offering advice or talking to the players. Some people are that way. They are interested in the game, and love to watch but they feel that they ought not to interfere. I had a cousin who just wouldn't talk while a hand was being played, and so, as she had to do something, she hummed. She didn't hum very well, and her program was limited to the first two lines of "How Firm a Foundation," but she carried it off very well and often got the players to humming it along with her. She could also drum rather well with her fingers on the back of the chair of one of the players while looking over his shoulder. "How Firm a Foundation" didn't lend itself very well to drumming; so she had a little patrol that she worked up all by herself, beginning soft, like a drum corps in the distance, and getting louder and louder, finally dying away again so that you could barely near it. It was wonderful how she could do it—and still go on living. Those who feel this way about talking while others are playing bridge have a great advantage over my cousin and her class if they can play the piano. They play ever so softly, in order not to disturb, but somehow or other you just know that they are there, and that the next to last note in the coda is going to be very sour. But, of course, the piano work does not technically come under the head of watching, although when there are two watchers to a table, one may go over to the piano while she is dummy. But your real watcher will allow nothing to interfere with his conscientious following of the game, and it is for real watchers only that these suggestions have been formulated. The minute you get out of the class of those who have the best interests of the game at heart, you become involved in dilettantism and amateurishness, and the whole sport of bridge-watching falls into disrepute. The only trouble with the game as it now stands is the risk of personal injury. This can be eliminated by the watcher insisting on each player being frisked for weapons before the game begins and cultivating a good serviceable defense against ordinary forms of fistic attack. <hr class="page" /> <h1 class="tei tei-head">V—A CHRISTMAS SPECTACLE</h1> <h1 style="font-size: 85%" class="tei tei-head">For Use in Christmas Eve Entertainments in the Vestry</h1> At the opening of the entertainment the Superintendent will step into the footlights, recover his balance apologetically, and say: "Boys and girls of the Intermediate Department, parents and friends: I suppose you all know why we are here tonight. (At this point the audience will titter apprehensively). Mrs. Drury and her class of little girls have been working very hard to make this entertainment a success, and I am sure that everyone here to-night is going to have what I overheard one of my boys the other day calling 'some good time.' (Indulgent laughter from the little boys). And may I add before the curtain goes up that immediately after the entertainment we want you all to file out into the Christian Endeavor room, where there will be a Christmas tree, 'with all the fixin's,' as the boys say." (Shrill whistling from the little boys and immoderate applause from everyone). There will then be a wait of twenty-five minutes, while sounds of hammering and dropping may be heard from behind the curtains. The Boys' Club orchestra will render the "Poet and Peasant Overture" four times in succession, each time differently. At last one side of the curtains will be drawn back; the other will catch on something and have to be released by hand; someone will whisper loudly, "Put out the lights," following which the entire house will be plunged into darkness. Amid catcalls from the little boys, the footlights will at last go on, disclosing: The windows in the rear of the vestry rather ineffectively concealed by a group of small fir trees on standards, one of which has already fallen over, leaving exposed a corner of the map of Palestine and the list of gold-star classes for November. In the center of the stage is a larger tree, undecorated, while at the extreme left, invisible to everyone in the audience except those sitting at the extreme right, is an imitation fireplace, leaning against the wall. Twenty-five seconds too early little Flora Rochester will prance out from the wings, uttering the first shrill notes of a song, and will have to be grabbed by eager hands and pulled back. Twenty-four seconds later the piano will begin "The Return of the Reindeer" with a powerful accent on the first note of each bar, and Flora Rochester, Lillian McNulty, Gertrude Hamingham and Martha Wrist will swirl on, dressed in white, and advance heavily into the footlights, which will go out. There will then be an interlude while Mr. Neff, the sexton, adjusts the connection, during which the four little girls stand undecided whether to brave it out or cry. As a compromise they giggle and are herded back into the wings by Mrs. Drury, amid applause. When the lights go on again, the applause becomes deafening, and as Mr. Neff walks triumphantly away, the little boys in the audience will whistle: "There she goes, there she goes, all dressed up in her Sunday clothes!" "The Return of the Reindeer" will be started again and the show-girls will reappear, this time more gingerly and somewhat dispirited. They will, however, sing the following, to the music of the "Ballet Pizzicato" from "Sylvia": "We greet you, we greet you, On this Christmas Eve so fine. We greet you, we greet you, And wish you a good time." They will then turn toward the tree and Flora Rochester will advance, hanging a silver star on one of the branches, meanwhile reciting a verse, the only distinguishable words of which are: "I am Faith so strong and pure—" At the conclusion of her recitation, the star will fall off. Lillian McNulty will then step forward and hang her star on a branch, reading her lines in clear tones: "And I am Hope, a virtue great, My gift to Christmas now I make, That children and grown-ups may hope today That tomorrow will be a merry Christmas Day." The hanging of the third star will be consummated by Gertrude Hamingham, who will get as far as "Sweet Charity I bring to place upon the tree—" at which point the strain will become too great and she will forget the remainder. After several frantic glances toward the wings, from which Mrs. Drury is sending out whispered messages to the effect that the next line begins, "My message bright—" Gertrude will disappear, crying softly. <ANTIMG src="images/image03.png" alt=""'Round and 'round the tree I go."" class="tei tei-figure" /> "'Round and 'round the tree I go." After the morale of the cast has been in some measure restored by the pianist, who, with great presence of mind, plays a few bars of "Will There Be Any Stars In My Crown?" to cover up Gertrude's exit, Martha Wrist will unleash a rope of silver tinsel from the foot of the tree, and, stringing it over the boughs as she skips around in a circle, will say, with great assurance: "'Round and 'round the tree I go, Through the holly and the snow Bringing love and Christmas cheer Through the happy year to come." At this point there will be a great commotion and jangling of sleigh-bells off-stage, and Mr. Creamer, rather poorly disguised as Santa Claus, will emerge from the opening in the imitation fire-place. A great popular demonstration for Mr. Creamer will follow. He will then advance to the footlights, and, rubbing his pillow and ducking his knees to denote joviality, will say thickly through his false beard: "Well, well, well, what have we here? A lot of bad little boys and girls who aren't going to get any Christmas presents this year? (Nervous laughter from the little boys and girls). Let me see, let me see! I have a note here from Dr. Whidden. Let's see what it says. (Reads from a paper on which there is obviously nothing written). 'If you and the young people of the Intermediate Department will come into the Christian Endeavor room, I think we may have a little surprise for you ...' Well, well, well! What do you suppose it can be? (Cries of "I know, I know!" from sophisticated ones in the audience). Maybe it is a bottle of castor-oil! (Raucous jeers from the little boys and elaborately simulated disgust on the part of the little girls.) Well, anyway, suppose we go out and see? Now if Miss Liftnagle will oblige us with a little march on the piano, we will all form in single file—" At this point there will ensue a stampede toward the Christian Endeavor room, in which chairs will be broken, decorations demolished, and the protesting Mr. Creamer badly hurt. This will bring to a close the first part of the entertainment. <hr class="page" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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