Nowhere else on earth, including New York, are there as many guys who make their livings introducing people. These articles thrive because they are personality-plus ghees with guts, who know right people, and if they don’t they go through the motions. If you want to meet someone—cabinet officer, army brass, congressman, fixer, or social hostess—these birds will introduce you—no hoke. They can get you into the White House to meet the President. They play poker with General Vaughan.
These fellows are functional. They are the catalysts who bring various elements together. When they assume a contract from an industrialist to introduce him to a bureau chief, they serve for the bureau chief, too, by introducing him to the industrialist from whom he will get favors in return for favors.
Some of the introducers work for straight fees. Others, smoother, are taken care of in politer but more lucrative ways, such as getting on the inside for a hunk of stock or a chance to buy government surplus for peanuts or other charming get-rich-quick methods.
You can be introduced to charming ladies, too. Polished procuring is a polite profession. No lush-rolling or extortion involved. It is honest pimping. Yet, little Rollo, there are still some honest gentlemen in Washington.
37. TIPS ON THE TOWNS
Booze
Washington consumes four times as much hootch as the entire state of Maryland, including Baltimore, which alone has 200,000 more population. The most popular kind of liquor is bourbon, suh, with rye next. Only fairies, English diplomats, New Yorkers and spats-wearers drink Scotch.
The legal liquor closing for on-premises consumption in the District is 2 a.m. on weekdays and midnight on weekends. Only beer and light wine may be sold on Sundays. Baltimore sells until 2 a.m., seven nights a week, though some saloons which do not serve food and which pay a lower license fee must close their bars at one. (But you can sit there until 2 to finish anything you bought earlier.) Only beer and light wine may be sold for on-premises consumption in Virginia. The closing hour is midnight. Prince Georges, Md., has a law similar to Washington’s—seldom observed.
Legal boozing age in the three jurisdictions is 21, though minors over 18 may drink beer in Maryland and D.C.