Indianapolis Times, Volume 48, Number 53, Indianapolis, Marion County, 12 May 1936 — Page 21

MAY 12, 1936.

— Today’s Short Story — - —- BEST MAN By Alma and Paul Ellerbe

PERRY BENEDICT and Florence Bassett were both young, highschooled. good-looking and intelligent, well born, well bred and up-and-coming. But while Perry did a good many things well, Florence did only one. The things Perry did well were the good old thumpingly American things of baseball, football, hunting and fishing, politics and salesmanship, whereas the thing Florence did well was dancing. But people were wrong. For while the many-sided Perry was noticeably competent, the one-sided Flosaie was superlative. But Springview didn’t know it. And Perry didn't know it. Perry thought Flossie was the Jnost beautiful girl in New England —whereas she wasn’t beautiful at all, only extraordinarily ornamental and chic; and the sweetest—whereas, though she tried hard, she was constantly breaking over and being a little bit catty, and he didn't know that the exquisitely delicate and individual rhythm that inhered in every moment of her small shapely body was something unique in that part of the world. Flossie didn't know it cither. In fact nobody knew it until Cunningham wolff came along. a a a TT was Cunningham Wolff’s business to know about such matters. He had put in the whole of his 34 „ .mrs studying them. Stage baby stage child, chorus boy, instructor in various dancing schools, director of pageants and amateur shows all over the American map, who would know if he didn’t? When Springview put on its annual Junior League show for charity, Eppley Simmons, who had millions, said he’d foot the bill for a director, Cunningham Wolff was going to cost SISOO for two months. So when Cunningham Wolff and Flossie Lassett’s dancing was unique in those parts, those parts believed him. As for Perry, he was chagrined. This new conception of Flossie didn’t fit in his world. He didn’t like it during rehearsals, when it was Flossie this and Flossie that, and “isn’t she too divine!” from the girls and men who had been quite content to take her in their stride until Cunningham Wolff came along; he loathed it on the big night when the show—which was practically all dancing—went over with a bang, every other number pivoted frankly on Florence Bassett, pirouetting, languishing, leaping under the direction and mostly into and out of the arms of Cunningham Wolff—for he danced the male lead 5n his own show—and he was very miserable indeed taking her home afterward. "You’re like another person,” he said, after certain passages of words that had fixed him in that conclusion. “That Wolff guy has turned your head. You think more of him than you do of me.” a m * A T the moment,” Flossie Bassett Aa. said tartly, having had a good deal to stand from her beloved, “1 certainly do! You’ve behaved like m. jealous, crochetly old dod, and I’m ashamed of you! I’m not only ashamed of you, I’m bored with you! And mad with you! You—you think I'm a piece of your property, and this is just about as good a time as any, Perry Benedict, to show you I'm not!” "Listen, kid.” Perry said earnestly, **any couple that really care about each other are each other’s property, see? How’d you like it if I spent all my spare time high-hatting you and hugging another girl in public and ” "That’ll be quite enough!" Flossie said icily, and opened the door on her side of the coupe and stepped out. "You're the only person in town that such a disgusting idea has occurred to. the only one who hasn’t liked my dancing and told me so. and ’* “I told you so.” “Yea, but you didn’t mean it. And the only one who hasn’t seen what Cunny Wolff has done for me and how darned nice he’s been about it all. He’s the best friend I've ever had, and if you don’t like it—well, I don’t know that I care!” said Flossie Bassett, who was gone before he could answer. a a a IT is doubtful if Perry quite knew the depth of his own caring until that moment sitting there alone staring after her. Their engagement had been one of those born-to-be affairs that are so easy to take for granted, and that’s the way he had taken it. He had a bitter moment alone with himself. He cursed himself for a fool, but fetlll he considered Flossie’s conduct very reprehensible and h- didn’t think she rated an apology. He eent around a huge lot of dowers next morning and hoped they could fcompromise on that. He really had

j let the kid down in the. way of appreciation of her triumph, and now that it was all over and she could simmer back to normalcy and her proper subsidiary place in his scheme of things, he was ready to acknowledge it. He still had a lot to Jearn. He learned it. “Cunny and I are going to New York,” she wrote him, “to dance in a swanky new night club that’s being opened by a friend of his. I’ll earn more in a week than you do in a month and see a lot of men to compare you with, and that ought to be good for both of us. Think things over, honey. You need to.” It made him very angry. It came in the first mail. He had a fellow waiting to be shown a car. If he liked it, he was going to buy 20, for all his salesmen. Perry couldn’t put him off. He did ask him to wait while he wrote an impassioned reply and dispatched it by messenger. TOO impassioned. *And also, he realized, after it was too late, commanding. The fellow did not buy the 20 cars, and when he returned from trying to sell them he found Flossie’s reply. It consisted of everything she could get her hands on in a hurry that he had ever given her and a brief message promising the rest when she returned. “We are taking the 10:05 train,” she wrote. “Think things over.” The 10:05 blew in the distance while he read it. He thought things over. And over and over. He thought himself almost into another personality. He made himself a man-sized humble pie and he ate it all. And then he squared away to write his little dancing darling the most amazing document that had ever flowed from his pen; nothing less—big heman that he was than a declaration of dependence his dependence upon her. He was composing it when a special delivery note arrived from a friend in New York, inclosing this from a newspaper columnist’s comments: “La Bassett and Cunny Wolff standing ’em up at the Top Hat, with a that-way feeling about each other of such high visibility that the knowing ones say they’ll be Lohengrinning at their friends from the aisle of the Little Church most any day now.” Perry Benedict climbed into his car and drove to the Top Hat. He drove practically all night. He was a good driver, tranquil or angry. He burned the wind. tt tt tt HE WALKED into the softly lighted, brightly colored, luxurious and exotic night ciub just as the place was closing. He wasn’t feeling heroic. He was feeling weary and dreary and dusty and asinine. But he was the stuff, that penultimate hour before the dawn, that heroes are made of. The swing he made at Cunny Wolff was unheroic in its sogginess and weariness and bad timing, but when Wolff side-stepped and laid open his upper lip, he came right back for more. Perry was a good boxer when he wasn't toxic with fatigue and misery and despair, but Wolff had taught a gym class once and was better. He knocked Perry Benedict flat on the hard polished dance floor, and from that vantage ground Perry looked up into the furious, perplexed, hurt and frightened blue of the eyes of little Flossie. attired for the street, just come beck into the almost empty place from her dressing room. “You fool!* she said to him in a sort of angry despair, and sobbed. “Yes,” he said on his feet in one angry bound, almost sobbing himself. “I am a fool! But we’ve loved each other all our lives not the 6ort of fiamn-fool infatuation you've got for his silky lounge lizard—and we re always going to. and you're not going to marry him if I have to —” ’’AAARRY him?” she said. “Marlvl ry him? You utter idiot! Whatever made you think ?” "This,” said Cunny Wolff, and produced another copy of the clipping. She read it in amazed silence. And then: “How stupid!” she gasped. “And —and cruel! And mean!” “Yes,” said Wolff. “I was afraid to show it to you before we danced, for fear of upsetting you. The louse that inserted it has had it in for me for years. He bribed a typesetter to stick it into another man’s column just before he sailed for Europe. I’m sorry.” He turned gravely to Perry. ‘Tm sorry for you, too, Mr. Benedict. It was a dirty deal. Will you—?” He held out his hand. What Perry did was to ask him to be best man. “You see,” he explained with a good deal of sincerity, “you’ve proved already that you are.” THE END

OUR BOARDING HOUSE

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FRECKLES AND HIS FRIENDS—

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WASHINGTON TUBBS n

a( PLEASE, DOC, VOuYwE'LL DO OUrT WON'T LET LULU BEST, YOUNG MAN, BELLE PlE y WILL / THE REST WILL

ALLEY OOP

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BOOTS AND HER BUDDIES

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TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD MEN

Through the night Tarzan waited, but there was no sign of the Taloned Death with which Sobito, the witch-doctor, had threatened him. As he emerged from the hut, Sobito loitered nearby. “Where is your Taloned Death?" Tarzan demanded boldly. "Does he fear me?”

THE imiAKAPOm HUES

An oily smile overspread the medicine man’s evil countenance. "Even Sobito's powerful magic can not summon him at once. Only one day has passed. Six more remain. If you leave our village, you may escape him.” “I shall remain,” Tarzan answered sternly*

With Major Hoopla

OUT OUR WAY

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r R,EASE, IF THERE'S \ YES,TO &E SURE. A f SLEEP-SAW ! FAT CHANCE, WITH LULU BELLE ANYTHING 1 CAN DO GO HOME AND GET MAYBE PYIN'. SHAKE A LEG, SUM. WE'RE DOC -ANYTHING'A />-L SOME SLEEP- GONNA FIND EASY, AN' GET THE BLANKETy BVOC'reMS.

SOUNDED AS IF IT CAME SAY- HAS \ NO- BUT ALLEY OOP Akl* DlklMY FROM SOMEWHERE J ANYTHING \HAVE JUS'"HAD AkJ AWFUL )WMw--1\ AROUND TH'PALACE . r f HAPPENED J ACCIDENT.' I WOULDN'T BE ]Y Y/ Y/ TO TH' (SURPRISED IF THEY'VE lY a’•/ j

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Perhaps, thought Tarzan, the sly old devil knew nothing of the Taloned Death after all, but was using it merely to frighten him away. At any rate he could do nothing now except wait for the mysterious Killer-Thing to strike again. He did not have long to walk ________

—By Edgar Rice Burroughs

That night Tarzan sat with the wise men of the tribe around the council fire. Sobito was there too. Suddenly from the far end of the village came a terrified scream. The wise men gasped. The old witch-doctor nodded knowingly* “The Taloned Death has struck l?

COMIO-FAOI

-By Williams

—By Blosser

—By Crane

—By Hamlin

—By Martin