Ades Fables | Page 7

a quiet Alcove with four Volumes that were being dissected
at the drawing-room Clinics, she took a hack at the first and last
Chapter of
each. Just enough to protect her against a Fumble if she found herself
next to a Book Sharp.
That evening a famous Hungarian Fiddler, accompanied by a warbling
Guinea Hen and backed up by sixty Symphonic Heineys wearing
Spectacles, was giving a Recital for the True Lovers in a Mammoth
Cave devoted to Art.
Loretta had a sneaking preference for the May Irwin School of
Expression, but she had to go through with the Saint-Saens Stuff now

and then to maintain a Club Standing.
Accordingly she and Mother and poor old dying Father, with no Heart
in the Enterprise, were planted well down in Section B, where they
could watch Mrs. Leroy Geblotz, who once entertained Nordica, and
say "Bravo" at the Psychological Moment.
On Saturday Morning, after she had penned 14 Epistles, using the tall
cuneiform Hieroglyphics, she didn't have a blessed thing to do before
her 1 o'clock Engagement except drop in at a Flower Show and a Cat
Show and have her Palm read by a perfectly fascinating Serpent with a
Goatee who had been telling all the Gells the most wonderful things
about themselves.
A merry little Group went slumming Saturday afternoon. They attended
a Ball Game. Loretta had her Chin over the Railing and evinced a keen
Interest, her only Difficulty being that she never knew which Side was
at bat.
At dusk she began hanging on the Family Jewels. It was a formal
Dinner Party with a list made up by Dun and Bradstreet.
Loretta found herself between an extinct Volcano of Political World
and a sappy Fledgling whose Grandfather laid the cornerstone of
Brooklyn.
The Dinner was one of those corpseless Funerals, stage-managed by a
respectable Lady with a granite Front who had Mayflower Corpuscles
moving majestically through her Arterial System.
Loretta was marooned so far from the Live Ones that she couldn't wig-
wag for Help. Her C. Q. D. brought no Relief.
She threw about three throes of Anguish before they escaped to the
private Gambling Hell.
Here she tucked back her Valenciennes and proceeded to cop a little
Pin-Money at the soul-destroying game known as Bridge.

At 11.30 she led a highly connected volunteer Wine Pusher out into the
Conservatory and told him she did not think it advisable to marry him
until she had learned his First Name.
Shortly after Midnight she blew, arriving at headquarters just in time to
participate in a Chafing-Dish Jubilee promoted by only Brother, just
back from the Varsity.
She approached the Porcelain in a chastened mood that Sabbath
morning. She was thinking of the Night Before and of playing cards for
Money. She remembered the glare of Light for overhead and the tense,
eager Faces peering above the Paste-Boards.
Then she recalled, with a sharp catch of the Breath and a little tug of
Pain at the Heart, that she had balled herself up at one Stage and got
dummied out of a Grand Slam.
"It would have meant a long pair of the Silk Kind," thought she, as she
sighed deeply and turned the cold Faucet.
After Breakfast, she took a long Walk up the Avenue as a Bracer.
After which to the Kirk, for she taught a class of Little Girls in the
Sunday School, and she had to fake up an Explanation of how Joshua
made the Sun stand still, thereby putting herself in the Scratch Division
of Explainers, believe us.
She listened to a dainty Boston Sermon, trimmed with Ruching, singing
lustily before and after.
Then back home with the solemn Parade to sit among the condemned
waiting for that superlative Gorge known as the Sunday Dinner.
While she was waiting, a male Friend dropped in. His costume was a
compromise between an English Actor and a hired Mourner.
On Week Days he sat at a Desk dictating Letters and saying that the
Matter had been referred to the proper Department.

He looked at Loretta, so calm and cool and collected in her pious
Raiment, and the Smile that he summoned was benevolent and almost
patronizing.
"I was wondering," said he. "I was wondering if a Girl like you ever
gets tired of sitting around and doing nothing."
Loretta did not cackle. She had read in a Book by a Yale Professor that
Woman is not supposed to possess the Sense of Humor.
MORAL: The Settlement Campaign is not getting to the real Workers.
THE NEW FABLE OF THE INTERMITTENT FUSSER
Once a grammar-school Rabbit, struggling from long Trousers toward
his first brier-wood Pipe, had Growing Pains which he diagnosed as the
pangs of True Love.
The Target was a dry-seasoned Fannie old enough to be his