Two of these misses nearby are discussing with one another their "doorman." "Isn't he," exclaims one, "the very dearest old doorman you have ever seen in all of your whole life!" Yes, it would seem that, peering down the long vista of the past, from out of their experience of hundreds of theatres, neither of these buds of womanhood could recall any doorman so "dear" as their present one.
The dominant group in the room is a gay and populous party about a large round table in the centre. And undoubtedly the dominant figure of this party is, you recognize, Alexander Woollcott, dramatic critic of the New York Times, invariably at this same table at this same hour, a very spirited, a very round plump young man, very dapper to the end of every hair in his trim little black moustache. Next to him who is that? Why, goodness me! if it isn't Edna Ferber, who, though I doubt not she would not want to be counted in the fledgling class of some of our soubrette friends here, indeed does seem to be getting younger all the while.
Joining this party now is an odd and rather humorous looking figure, tall, amusingly stooping and amusingly ample of girth for a character of such apparently early manhood, an intensely black crop of hair and a very blackish streak of moustache, soft collar, unpressed clothes. Sits down, hooping himself over his plate with a suggestion of considerable shyness. Gives you an impression, perhaps by the brightness of his eyes, of Puckish mirth playing within his mind. Heywood Broun.
At the table on our right we perceive a very popular lady known to us, Miss Margaret Widdemer, or, as she now is, Mrs. Robert Haven Schauffler. Her general air breathing the simplicity of a milkmaid amid this scene. Under her mammoth floppy hat reminding you of an early summer rose. She is discussing with a spectacled person who looks as if he might have something to do with book publishing whether her next book should be a light romance on the order of her "Wishing-Ring Man" and "Rose Garden Husband" or she should come into the new movement of serious "Main Street" kind of realism.
And there, on our left, certainly is a publisher, Mr. Liveright of the firm of Boni and Liveright. Young fellow, thirty-five perhaps. Maybe he is talking about some of his striking successes, such as "Potterism" and "From Mayfair to Moscow." With him Ludwig Lewisohn, literary and dramatic critic.
Back of us we detect young Burton Rascoe, former literary editor of the Chicago Tribune, newly arrived in New York as managing editor of McCall's Magazine, and to whom (by the way) the suppressed novel "Jurgen" was dedicated. You wouldn't think anybody would be so frowning as to want to suppress Mr. Rascoe. He looks as if he might be twin brother to any dewy bud here.
Who is that he is with? Theodore Maynard, I declare. Young English poet, critic and novelist. And the other side of him is a gentleman, Oliver Saylor by name, who at the height of the revolution went to Russia to study the Russian drama, and engrossed in æsthetics lived for a time in quarters midway between the contending military forces. Beyond we see a young lady recently come on from Ted Shawn's song and dance studio in Los Angeles.
And yonder you see a young man who is just as dear and sweet as he can be. He served his country during the war by knitting a sweater and a "helmet" for a poet he knew in the army in France. He, this dainty youth, looks pretty much lip-sticked himself. In order not to sin against daintiness this young person has a habit of powdering his nose. A coarse friend of his forbade his doing this, and the next time he met him neatly powdered rebuked him for it. Whereupon the young man replied: "Oh! You wouldn't (would you?) let a little powder come between friends."
And, finally, here most happily we are ourselves.