NEW YORK
ALBERT AND CHARLES BONI
96 Fifth Avenue
1914
Copyright, 1914
by
Albert and Charles Boni
I
Three young men, the best of friends, a painter, Bainbridge Breen, a writer, Eric Nielsen, and a composer, John Carstairs, were arguing that three-faced conundrum, morals. Quite an accident had provoked them to it: a waitress, Erna Vitek. From picking at her they had launched into axiomizing, only to come back to her. Her morals were the vital topic of the evening. Carstairs’ studio provided the mise en scène.
“Well, we’ve hit a conclusion at last,” said Breen with an air of comfortable finality. “Carstairs calls her moral, I say she’s unmoral, and Nielsen that she may be moral, unmoral or even both.”
“Yes!”
“Now, we’ve all conceded that Erna’s not immoral—at least she doesn’t lead a life inconsistent with morality?”
“Yes!”
“Very well then,” Breen concluded contentedly. “Now let me make a proposition.”