Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 109, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1915 — SEEING LIFE with JOHN HENRY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SEEING LIFE with JOHN HENRY

by George V.Hobart

JmTh John Henru onTurkeu Trotting ■ila I (Copyright, 1915. by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)

SAT! did you ever get ready and go to a Turkey Trot party? Scold me—l deserve it, Paw! You wouldn’t think it, but here in New York the Pet of Fortune who makes it his life’s work to Burn Money is sometimes hard put for an excuse to Light the Match. When a Paloofa with nothing in his attic but shredded wheat falls heir to a hatful of Mazuma he quickly realizes that the money has to be ignited—but how to do it! The awning that hangs between his pompadour and his eyebrows becomes Care-furrowed from trying to figure out just how to set fire to the coin Dad left him without attracting the attention of the police. The Poor Thing soon discovers that it’s awfully hard to invent a new style in Financial Bonfires, so he falls back on the flint-and-steel method of Ignition—and Gives a Party. He knows that his bundle of green and yellow pathfinders will burn with a brighter flame if he can induce a lot of Night Riders to tarry by his hearthstone during the ceremony. And joy in abundance is his when they begin to kick the ashes around his $5,000 apartment with their slippered feet. Having beard Peaches breathe a desire to be Among Those Present at a Turkey Toddle, our friend Hep Hardy got busy with his favorite paying teller and gave one. I tried to explain to friend wife that she’d find herself in a blush-pro-ducing atmosphere where she’d hear them discussing White Slave dramas, hot from the Grand Jury room, but she merely stung me with a dimpled smile and said, “Tush; come on; let’s tease a taxi!’’ Hep lives in one of those expensive shacks where the entrance is made up to look like the room Louis the Fifteenth used to get shaved in. When you step in the front door you think you’ve suddenly arrived at a forced sale of art objects and bric-a-brac. The attendant who greets you with a grin like a comatose catfish must have been at one ( time a Captain in the Imperial German Army, for he still

celebrities present, with the exception of those who were busy stepping on each other’s feet in the joyous dance. Peaches and I sat down to watch the mad revels, but as we did so a music box concealed in our little tete-a-tete sofa began to play “Snookey Ookuma,” so we arose hurriedly and decided to stand during the rest of the carnival. When we hurriedly arose to the occasion a Literary Gnat whose name is Georgie Nathun got the laugh of his life. “Pardon me!” he said, giggling, “but to a man with my keen sense of humor the episode of the concealed music box was intensely ludicrous. Now that my laughter has subsided would you mind doing it over again that I may study the situation from a psychological point of view!" What are you going to do with a fried smelt like that?

I wanted to coax him into one of the bath rooms and turn the shower on him, but Peaches begged me not to dampen his youthful ardor, so I told him what particular Ingredient of a cheese sandwich he resembled and passed him up. Georgie is fearfully erudite. With his thumb and forefinger he picks big words out of his bulging forehead and assembles them into neat little paragraphs. These he carries on a tray to a magazine where kind-hearted men pay him money and beg him not to come back until he has spent it all. Georgie was getting along very nicely until one day somebody told him he was clever —then he fell apart. Now he makes up his pieces in front of a mirror and when he thinks of something devilishly cute he and his reflection exchange loving glances. Then he pins a medal on his breast and quits work for the day. Somebody should take off Georgie’s watch and slap his wrist real hard. In the meantime the war dance of the Manhattan Indians went bravely on. It was catch-as-catch-can all over the place. They* swayed and toddled , and wobbled and bobbled, each and all of them trying hard to conceal the fact that they were human beings. They danced the Lame Duck and

wears his Uhlan unifqplh with the hand-painted sleeves and the Murillo panels inserted in the silk stockings. Some class, take it from Uncle Jasper! There is .such an air of subdued elegance and concentrated luxury .about the lay-out that you-want to rush to a telephone, call up your office and tell them there that you’re never going to work again as long as you live. The elevator doors swing open disclosing a picture post card of a Turkish seraglio—whatever that is. Then a West Indian chauffeur, all dolled like Sir Walter Raleigh on his way to see. Queen Elizabeth, gives you the high sign and shoots , Heavenward while you sink to your waist in the Persian rug on the floor of the gilded cage. Hep’s parade grounds are on the Twelfth floor. His apartment consists of eleven rooms and nine baths. Through an oversight the dining room and the butler’s pantry have no bath attached, but Hep says that defect will be remedied if he has to drop another >B,OOO a year into the Kitty. The Party was in full blast when we reached the scene of the Conflagration. A string orchestra concealed behind a lot of aristocratic rubber plants scattered enough rag-time for everybody to dip in and help themselves, so up and down through Hep’s library into the drawing-room, through the living-room, across the hall, and through the card room, around the foyer, back through the sitting room, down the hall again and back into the drawing-room the various couples pranced and galloped and wriggled and squirmed and joshed each other into the belief that this was Life. Hep met us at the door of the Fun Factory and introduced us to all the

Simpering Cinnamon Bear; the Lingering Drag and the Jack Rabbit Jump; the Boston Antelope, and the Philadelphia Scramble. Every once in a while they’d stop,-take a long breath and then off again into the Buzzard Bend and Walrus Wiggle. Each individual tried to act as a special agent for the Zoo? “How do you like it?’’ I asked Peaches. , “It’s awful,” she gasped. "Look at that girl over-there. Why does she try to act like a penknife?” “Come out of the hardware store,” I answered. "She’s doing the Armadillo Bendback!” Just then Hep came up and asked Peaches if she wouldn’t glide out and dodge the furniture with him, whereupon the Queen of my Bungalow shuddered from hairpins io shoe buckles, murmured, “I don’t know how,” and hid her head in my shoulder. ’Til fix that,” squeaked Hep, and two minutes later we were confronted by a thick-set individual who talked in chunks. His name was Manuel Hochenstein and he had a map on him like a crosssection of the McAdoo tunnel. .* “Why don’t you get out and hit the hurdles with the hoppers?” he inquired. “My wife wasn’t brought up in a circus,” I went back at him; “and I’m a shine acrobat.” “Aw, say, it’s a cinch, this bunk Turkey Trotting.” Mr. Hochenstein informed us. “Why, in ten minutes I can learn anybody that isn’t a war, veteran with two wooden legs. I got a Studio where I learn everybody—ten dollars a lesson. Why, I’ve learned some of the swellest Society dames in this burg. You know I used to be a bookmaker, but there’s more money in this game. Xt*s a ten to one shot and

T bring the bacon every time the flag drops. It’s a pipe—l can learn any. body. I learned Hep Hardy, didn’t I?—and his feet are like a couple at nervous ferry-boats. “All the Turkey Trot needs is two arms, two leg and a sunny disposition. “Here’s my card—anything you like I’ll learn you—the tango, the dip, the trot, the glide, the lope, the squat, the squirm, the slide, the spiral, the fore and aft, and the side-wheel. Say! if your wife will come out on the fireescape where it’s quiet I’ll learn her the Texas Spider in eight minutes by a stop-watch—get me?” “I get you," I said, “but I don’t need you." Then we permitted Manuel to fade abruptly out of our lives while Peaches gurgled, "Why should any sane person want to learn those awful dances!" “True for you, little bright-lamps,” I chortled; “but they toll me there’s a wiggly bit of a germ that gets in the blood and then your* temperature rises and you break out in a Bunny Hug." “Nonsense!” she sniffed and left me flat just as Hep bustled up again

to inquire if we were having a good time. “Great!” I ananniased; “but, say. Hep! you’ve been getting some new statuary, haven’t you? What’s that over in the corner there, with the bright lights around it — A Venus de Milo with the arms restored?" “Let go!” Hep snickered. “That’s Clarlbel Swift of the Frivolity The* ater." “Oh!" I "what’s the matter—did the dressmaker disappoint her?’* “Why, no,” Hep assured me; “she's wearing the latest in French creations —the cobweb gown." “Well, why not get the poor girl a screen; she’ll catch cold," I suggested just as Lord Rumbo of Merry England hawhawed his way over to us, whereupon Hep whispered something to me about being kind to the nobility and moseyed away. "Ripping, isn’t it?" said His Lordship. “Which one ?” I queried; “that makes seven I’ve counted in half an hour." "What are you referring to, I mean to say?" monocled the son of a Belted Earl. “The skirts,” I answered; "they’ve been ripping ever since the music started. Some of these ginks do the Turkey trot like a hungry man going up an apple tree for a midday meal.” “Quite so,” picadillied the last of his race; “but I was referring to the affair —the party! Ripping! I didn’t think I was going to like America, I mean to say, but these Turkey Trot parties have quite won me over—quite. I attend them constantly. I was broken-hearted when they closed the cabarets at one o’clock. Disgusting, really! What is life without the turkey trot —nothing! What is. one’s existence without the tango—nothing, I mean to say. Take away my Bunny Hug and what have I left—nothing! Separate me from my Boston Dip and life becomes a drear expanse. What’s the use of going to restaurants any more? One can’t eat one’s soup without turkey trot music. I’ve tried it—and it splashes." You know when the bug bites as deep as that it does no good to yell for peroxide. “I say, old chap,” His Lordship rattled along, "where's your charming wife? I should like awfully to do the New Orleans Drag with her —what?" “She doesn’t dance,” I said. “One foot is a Presbyterian; the other a Methodist —nothing doing.” "I think she does splendidly,” the truant from the House of Lords came back at me. "Ah, thejre she is now with my friend, Hardy; doing the Cincinnati Cling, aren’t they?*’ I looked and, suffering rag-time! his blue-blooded Nibs was right? There was Peaches with Hep Hardy hoofing it down the room and making the occasion a jubilee of joy. Gasping, I fell back on the trick sofa and le£ “Snooky Ookums” play to the bitter end. “Bind up his wounds, Doctor; with proper nursing we may pull him through.”

Meantime the War Dance of the Manhattan Indians Went Bravely On.

There Was Peaches With Hep Hardy Hoofing it Down the Room.