1937-08-20 — Page 5

Let's Begin with POODLE

NOW, I won't tell you who I

am, but if you want to fer- ret it out for yourself, call up In- formation and call for a fells that's married to a woman named Mary who says that when her husband's drinking he talks a great deal too much. When he ain't drinking, he won't talk at all Mary al- ways gets mad at him when he's drinking, so she must figure that if he talks at all, it's too much.

Outside of me the great sorrow in Mary's fe is not having in- somnia. It just about kills her to think that there's seven or eight hours out of the twenty-four when she ain't talking. I've tried to tell her that she talks in her sleep. She won't believe it be- cause she always wakes up de pressed.

Well, let's begin all over. I to say that every Christmas up to last Christmas Waldron's al- ways gave their employees a bonus of 10 per cent, and, believe it or not, that meant 600 dollars to the fella that's promised to rock you to sleep. As a matter of fact. it didn't really mean a dime; I just kept the cheque till I got home

and then I endorsed it and turn- ed it over to Mary, and she went ahead and spent it whatever way she wanted to, which was to help pay for a new car because the one she bought last year had cigarette ashes on the running board.

But when we girls and boys -opened our envelopes on the 24th of December this, last ult. we got a big surprise. It seems the old man had received a mash note from the Secretary of the Trea- sury, and he'd read between the lines and found out that there was a temporary slump in business, and the only way to offset it was to turn over our bonus cheques to some deserving charity on Wall Street

He enclosed a substitute for same in the form of an order on a couple of haberdashers, one for women and one for men, call- ing for 50 dollars' worth of pearl- handled suspenders for the high- salaried guys like myself and scal-. ing all the way down to 5-dollar certificates for the office boy's and

the little blonde kid who had been playing guessing games with the telephone switchboard for three weeks.

Well, during the first week of my married life. I'd passed a re- solution to never tell Mary any bad news, and the result was that I'd practically become a mute ex- cept when I made a few local stops on the way home from the office. But this time there was no way of concealing the facts or even stalling long enough to not spoil the spirit of the occasion.

I handed her the envelope with- out a word of warning, and w She'd read the contents

to realise that it wasn't

joke, she let out a yell that would have waked up a porter

I won't attempt to remember all the bright ideas she had when the first shock was over.

One was to hire a lawyer to sue Mr. Waldron for the 600 on the grounds that he had given it to me so many Christmases that it was really part of my

When you've been r

hus-

band eight years, you know that the only way to win an argu- ment, or stop one, is to agree with everything she says. After you've yes-ed her a couple of times she'll change sides. Then you change with her.

She gave up plotting how to fleece Mr. Waldron after I'd cheer- ed every suggestion she could think of.

ever met and doesn't need to speak a word!

Twice during

brought up the

Evening Edith

bject herself

She asked me how it felt to be a

millionaire.

new, but Mary dashed- that would have fooled a lot less dumber dame than Mr. Waldron had raised the bonus. instead of repealing it what you'd have thought, seeing Mary smile

Well, Jack's concern remember: ed him the last day of the year They gave him his freedom and a nice note, telling him how sorry they were to lose his services Jack realised that there

chance of him landing anyth in his line at even half what the Boland people had paid him, so

he

toed Edita moved out to Chi-

The Ingrams were the first peo- ple we met when we came Bayside. It only took Mary and Edith Ingram 20 minutes to ce ment a beautiful friendship, and I'd have had to like Jack even if he was a collector of Internal Revenue.

Jack had a good job with the Boland Drug Company. He was getting 7000 when we met him and they boosted him to 7500 be fore the crash.

Short Story

Christmas Eve, it was the In- grams' turn to come and see us. Mary said I musn't tell them about our little surprise, they lik ed us so much that they'd feel pretty near as bad as m

we did, especially Edith, who could be so sympathetic sometimes that it was almost impossible not to get up and sock

ber

in the jaw You see, the difference between my regular salary and Jack's was. 1500 dollars, but his firm had never even given him a pocket comb for Christmas, let alone 2. cheque, so if Edith didn't know our secret Mary could still take advantage of her only annual chance to gloat, and I will state on behalf of my Mary that she can outgloat any two women I

o, where his brother owns a couple of hotels, and he's going to run one of them

Mary felt terrible losing Edith, but she did have the satisfaction of one final gloat the night before they went away. That happened to be the 7th of January and the 7th of January happened to be my birthday. And without know- ing anything about it being my birthday, Mr. Waldron called me

By Ring Lardner

in his office that afternoon and made a speech which I'm wondering why he made it

He said he understood blow the bonus thing must been to the employees, it probably spoiled their

it had spoiled his worrying about it he showing his appreciation loyalty in the usual way, but business conditions didn't. warrant his keeping everybody on payroll, let alone giving bonus of 10 per cent.

be

and imally strictly

didn't sat it 350

you give

take the Danc the time the Ingr

she had me getting 800

500 more than Bolands were pay ing Jack before they fired him

Not only that, but she appoint- ed me general manager, and if Ingrams had stayed an hour er she probably would have ma me Waldron's partner. was the silentest I ever saw If she'd opened her have screamed

That brings elief or the something. Florida Monday of January in to bid hu I got to the office ing there was a him saying he sudden change in vented him seeing and a sudden chang business outlook had necessary to reduce per cent. T aried man was simply What To been

valuable

would

Now

the

futu

ing

However, I was the most valu able man in his employ and it wasn't fair for me to be treated like the riffraff, and he intended to more than make up to me. for the 600 dollars I hadn't got; it

up

his

him they took the diner Jackson

I was

tough

(Continued on

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