One morning when they were having breakfast in bed there was a light knock on the door. “Come in,” yelled Charley, thinking it was the waiter. Two shabbylooking men rushed into the room, followed by O’Higgins, a shyster lawyer he’d met a couple of times back in Detroit. Sally let out a shriek and covered her head with the pillow.
“Howdy, Charley,” said O’Higgins. “I’m sorry to do this but it’s all in the line of duty. You don’t deny that you are Charles Anderson, do you? Well, I thought you’d rather hear it from me than just read the legal terms. Mrs. Anderson is suing you for divorce in Michigan… That’s all right, boys.”
The shabby men bowed meekly and backed out the door.
“Of all the lousy stinkin’ tricks…”
“Mrs. Anderson’s had the detectives on your trail ever since you fired her chauffeur in Jacksonville.”
Charley had such a splitting headache and felt so weak from a hangover that he couldn’t lift his head. He wanted to get up and sock that sonofabitch O’Higgins but all he could do was lie there and take it. “But she never said anything about it in her letters. She’s been writin’ me right along. There’s never been any trouble between us.”
O’Higgins shook his curly red head. “Too bad,” he said. “Maybe if you can see her you can arrange it between you. You know my advice about these things is always keep ’em out of court. Well, I’m heartily sorry, old boy, to have caused you and your charming friend any embarrassment… no hard feelings I hope, Charley old man… I thought it would be pleasanter more open and aboveboard if I came along if you saw a friendly face, as you might say. I’m sure this can all be amicably settled.” He stood there a while rubbing his hands and nodding and then tiptoed to the door. Standing there with one hand on the doorknob he waved the other big flipper towards the bed. “Well, solong, Sally… Guess I’ll be seein’ you down at the office.” Then he closed the door softly after him. Sally had jumped out of bed and was running towards the door with a terrified look on her face. Charley began to laugh in spite of his splitting headache. “Aw, never mind, girlie,” he said. “Serves me right for bein’ a sucker… I know we all got our livin’s to make… Come on back to bed.”
Newsreel LX
Was Céline to blame? To young Scotty marriage seemed just a lark, a wild time in good standing. But when she began to demand money and the extravagant things he couldn’t afford did Céline meet him halfway? Or did she blind herself to the very meaning of the sacred word: wife?
CROOK FROZEN OUT OF SHARE IN BONDS
TELLS MURDER PLOT
TO REPEAL DECISION ON CAST IRON PIPE
In a little Spanish town
’Twas on a night like this
speculative sentiment was encouraged at the opening of the week by the clearer outlook. Favorable weather was doing much to eliminate the signs of hesitation lately evinced by several trades
I’m in love again
And the Spring
Is comin’
I’m in love again
Hear my heart strings
Strummin’
ITCHING GONE IN ONE NIGHT
thousands of prosperous happy women began to earn double and treble their former wages and sometimes even more immediately
Yes sir that’s my baby
That’s my baby na-ow!
APE TRIAL GOAT TO CONFER WITH ATTORNEYS
Mysterious Mr. Y to Testify
an exquisite replica in miniature of a sunlit French country home on the banks of the Rhone boldly built on the crest of Sunset Ridge overlooking the most beautiful lakeland in New Jersey where every window frames a picture of surprising beauty
And the tune I’m hummin’
I’ll not go roamin’ like a kid again
I’ll stay home and be a kid again
NEIGHBORS ENJOIN NOCTURNAL SHOUTS
IN TURKISH BATH
ALL CITY POLICE TURN OUT IN
BANDIT HUNT
CONGOLEUM BREAK FEATURES OPENING
for the sixth week freight car loadings have passed the million mark in this country, indicating that prosperity is general and that records are being established and broken everywhere
Good-bye east and good-bye west
Good-bye north and all the rest
Hello Swan-ee Hello
Margo Dowling
When Margo got back to the city after her spring in Miami everybody cried out how handsome she looked with her tan and her blue eyes and her hair bleached out light by the Florida sun. But she sure found her work cut out for her. The Mandevilles were in a bad way. Frank had spent three months in the hospital and had had one kidney removed in an operation. When he got home he was still so sick that Agnes gave up her position to stay home and nurse him; she and Frank had taken up Science and wouldn’t have the doctor any more. They talked all the time about having proper thoughts and about how Frank’s life had been saved by Miss Jenkins, a practitioner Agnes had met at her tearoom. They owed five hundred dollars in doctor’s bills and hospital expenses, and talked about God all the time. It was lucky that Mr. Anderson the new boyfriend was a very rich man.
Mr. A, as she called him, kept offering to set Margo up in an apartment on Park Avenue, but she always said nothing doing, what did he think she was, a kept woman? She did let him play the stockmarket a little for her, and buy her clothes and jewelry and take her to Atlantic City and Long Beach weekends. He’d been an airplane pilot and decorated in the war and had big investments in airplane companies. He drank more than was good for him; he was a beefy florid guy who looked older than he was, a big talker, and hard to handle when he’d been drinking, but he was openhanded and liked laughing and jokes when he was feeling good. Margo thought he was a pretty good egg. “Anyway, what can you do when a guy picks up a telephone and turns over a thousand dollars for you?” was what she’d tell Agnes when she wanted to tease her. “Margie dear, you mustn’t talk like that,” Agnes would say. “It sounds so mercenary.” Agnes talked an awful lot about Love and right thoughts and being true and good these days. Margo liked better to hear Mr. Anderson blowing about his killings on the stockmarket and the planes he’d designed, and how he was going to organize a net of airways that would make the Pennsylvania Railroad look like a suburban busline.
Evening after evening she’d have to sit with him in speakeasies in the Fifties drinking whiskey and listening to him talk about this business and that and big deals in stocks down on the Street, and about how he was out to get that Detroit crowd that was trying to ease him out of Standard Airparts and about his divorce and how much it was costing him. One night at the Stork Club, when he was showing her pictures of his kids, he broke down and started to blubber. The court had just awarded the custody of the children to his wife.
Mr. A had his troubles all right. One of the worst was a redheaded girl he’d been caught with in a hotel by his wife’s detectives who was all the time blackmailing him, and threatening to sue for breach of promise and give the whole story to the Hearst papers. “Oh, how awful,” Agnes would keep saying, when Margo would tell her about it over a cup of coffee at noon. “If he only had the right thoughts… You must talk to him and make him try and see… If he only understood I know everything would be different… A successful man like that should be full of right thoughts.”