“Scandals?” says Ogi. “Have I said anything about scandals?”
“You tell your readers you’re going to turn the artists’ pockets inside out and show what is in them! If you don’t do it, they’ll say, ‘This show is a frost!’”
I mention that Mrs. Ogi was brought up in exclusive social circles, where never a breath of slang could pass her lips without some female relative raising a finger and whispering: “Hush!” But times are changing, and marriage becomes more and more a lottery.
Says Mrs. Ogi’s husband: “Of course I intend to muck-rake individual artists—”
“Which artists?”
“Well, I have to begin at the beginning—”
“But you’ve already begun with the beginning of the world!”
“I have to begin now with the first significant art.”
Mrs. Ogi’s snort reminds her husband of the old days of the aurochs hunt. “What the American people want to know is how many thousand dollars a week Gloria Swanson is really getting, and what was Rupert Hughes’ total income from ‘The Sins of Hollywood.’ Is all that to be put off to the end of your book?”
“But how can I deal with present-day art ahead of ancient art?”