CHAPTER X
OF THOSE WHO WISH TO CRASH INTO SOCIETY—AND OF THOSE WHO FURNISH THE PALPITATING SOCIETY ITEMS
The business of being smart and appearing at the proper places at the proper hour is merely the accepted method of killing time with many Palm Beachers; but with many others it is as serious as the death of a near relative. Palm Beach is well sprinkled with people who are determined to break into New York society, and who have selected Palm Beach as the place to drive the entering wedge because results can be obtained there with greater speed, with less expense and with more noise than in any other section of the country.
A young New Yorker with a small income broke into society with a crash and married, not so very long ago, a beautiful widow with a strangle-hold on society and a fortune that kept a couple of income tax experts working a month each year. He explained his system to a friend of mine with the peculiar half childish and half idiotic frankness that may frequently be encountered in the upper crust of society. If he had attempted to break in by way of New York, he said, he would have spent all his money on dinners and luncheons; and about as much notice would have been taken of his struggles as would be taken of a stray dish of prunes at a banquet. But by coming to Palm Beach and getting on the right side of the society reporters, he was able to give one fair-sized and comparatively inexpensive luncheon and have the news telegraphed immediately to the New York papers. By doing this a couple of times a season, he was able to repay all the invitations which he accepted in New York; and it was apparent to all New York newspaper readers that he was making a society splash at Palm Beach. So he was soon accepted as being socially prominent, whereupon he picked out the richest thing in sight, married it and stopped worrying.
Many people at Palm Beach feel that they must have press agents to keep them in the limelight. There is one enterprising Palm Beach press agent who supplies the newspapers with palpitating items about seven or eight social climbers, and whose earnings from this source are over thirty thousand a year. When one reads of a socially prominent Palm Beacher doing something fearfully original, like giving a dinner to all her friends’ dogs, one may know that she has been hiring a press agent to fill her mind with valuable ideas.
CHAPTER XI
OF THE ALIBI WINDOW—OF THE TRICK FLASKS AND CANES—OF DRINKERS FRAIL AND FAT—AND OF ONE CONCEPTION OF SIMPLICITY
The Palm Beach crowd is always ready to part with money for anything that looks sufficiently smart and interesting. In order to facilitate the parting, some of the country’s leading costumers and rug merchants and hat makers and jewelers have moved their branch stores into the hotel lobbies, so that the passers-by can separate themselves from their money with a minimum of exertion.
There is one Palm Beach window that is known as the Alibi Window. It is full of gorgeous diamond pendants and diamond bracelets and simple little ten-thousand-dollar rings; and the Palm Beach theory is that the shop’s best customers are men who have been raising what is somewhat loosely known as the dickens. As is well known, a man whose conscience is troubling him can frequently keep it quiet by getting his wife a pendant of diamonds set in platinum. At night, when the shop is locked up, all the jewelry is removed from the window and replaced with a large flock of frosted silver cocktail-shakers whose appearance alone is warranted to give even a Prohibition Enforcement Agent a thirst. This spectacle is supposed to make the observer hunt up some whisky and get himself nicely boiled, and possibly to make him fall so low as to speak disrespectfully of the society leaders. On the following day he buys jewelry to square himself with his wife.
Large, curved pocket flasks, two of which would make fine protective armor for the entire upper part of the body if worn on opposite sides, are popular at Palm Beach, as is a new trick cane that unscrews at a joint and reveals a long, slender bottle three-quarters of an inch in diameter and two feet long. The popularity of these canes, which come in half-pint and pint sizes, indicate clearly that some enterprising hat manufacturer will soon get out a two-pint straw hat for Florida wear.