Please see the [Transcriber’s Notes] at the end of this text.

STOP!

No reader will be permitted to pass beyond this page who is not actually in society. This book is not for those who dwell in the gloom of mere respectability, or the blaze of sheer wealth. It is a pasturage intended solely for those who bask in the sunlight of the smartest society.

Those whose social standing could conceivably be classed with that of brewers, green-grocers, minor poets, munition magnates, linen drapers, provincial actors, and cubist sculptors, must not trespass within these covers.

BUT—

If your name appears in all the Social Directories; if you are a member of six or eight fashionable clubs; if you never plan a dinner without unpotting a pound or so of pâté de foie gras; if you never witness an opera except from an opera box; if you never go to the city except in an imported motor-car, why then just knock at the title page, open the door, walk in, take off your monocle—or your turreted tiara—and make yourself perfectly at home.

AN INVITATION TO THE
READER

Elucidating the Little May-Pole
Festival on the following [page]

Reader, will you join a gay dance
Of the younger Social Set,
And, amid their merry May-dance,
Personally pirouette?
Don a garment, smart and snappy,
Wear your most engaging smile,
Banish boredom and be happy—
In the world of chic and style.

Cedric woos Celeste—who dances—
Vowing love that never dies;
Ethel sees adoring glances
In athletic Albert’s eyes;
Peter—solvent as Mæcenas,
Lures a mermaid to the shore,
Telling her she looks like Venus,
Which, of course, she’s heard before.

You may dance, while Signor Cupid
Fiddles an entrancing tune;
Or, if you find jazzing stupid,
There are gardens—and a moon!
Life, and all its animation
Bids us join the mad mêlée,
And, to use an old quotation,
Gather rose-buds while we may.

Every make of merry mortal,
Wise or otherwise, is here,
And this page is but the portal
Of another world made clear.
Yes, a world, and you may buy it
In this giddy, gaudy book,
Though, of course, I can’t deny it
Has a rather Fish-y look!

G. S. C.

The Social Merry-Go-Round

The artist is the director, the book a many-colored whirligig. Group after group revolves before us, while the artist smiles with an arch, faintly satiric smile, pointing out to us the weaknesses of the participants in this sacred social world, a delightfully gay throng, constantly occupied in singing, cajoling, feasting, playing, and dancing. Each of the characters in this book recognizes only one duty toward himself—not to be bored—and one law toward his neighbors—not to bore them. The wheel of the merry-go-round turns again; color is blurred with color; figure succeeds figure. Montez, Monsieur, montez, Madame. The show begins.

HIGH SOCIETY
Advice as to Social Campaigning,
and Hints on the Management of
Dowagers, Dinners, Debutantes, Dances,
and the Thousand and One Diversions of
Persons of Quality

The Drawings by
FISH
The Prose Precepts by
DOROTHY PARKER
GEORGE S. CHAPPELL
and
FRANK CROWNINSHIELD

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS · NEW YORK and LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press

A HINT TO HIGHWAYMEN

Copyright, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920, by the
VANITY FAIR PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.
Copyright, 1920, by G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

Fish, And Her Work

When, in the summer of 1914, certain remarkable drawings of social life, by a new hand, began to appear, in Vanity Fair in New York, and in The Tatler in London, people all over the world stared at them, amazed, amused, admiring. Then they stared at each other, demanding, with one voice: “Who, under the sun, is Fish?”

Meantime, a tall, slender young girl of twenty-two was drawing the pictures that were helping to keep laughter alive during those dark days—and troubling very little indeed as to whether Fame’s wandering searchlight would ever find her out.

That girl was “Fish,” deemed to-day, by many critics, the most distinguished of satirical black-and-white illustrators.

Miss Fish has created, on that miraculous drawing-board of hers, a complete human society, as original and amusing as the worlds of George Du Maurier and Charles Dana Gibson. It is a world populated by young-old matrons, astoundingly mature young girls, Victorian lady remnants, resplendent captains of industry, pussy-footing English butlers, amourous nursemaids, race touts, yearning young lovers, swanking soldiers, blank and vapid bores, bridge-playing parsons, and middle-class millionaires. But, for all its sophistication, it is a world of innocence. The creatures in it are of a touching simplicity, an incredible naïveté. Fish is one of the only caricaturists who has ever done this sort of satire without malice—who has ever treated the poor, misguided children of this world as if they were really children.

But there is beauty in her extraordinary gallery, as well as caricature. The patterns on her flappers’ gowns are like laces and hangings by Beardsley; a Pomeranian lying on a rug, becomes a patch of elegant scrollery, like a detail in a Japanese print. There is no trace at all, in her drawings, of the hackneyed conventions of illustration: everything in them is presented through the medium of an original feeling for form. Even her profiteering millionaires become designs made up of deft and satisfying curves. Her sketches are creations not only of a clever and sophisticated intelligence, but of a true artist.

Photograph by Malcolm Arbuthnot

“FISH”

In depicting fashionable society Miss Fish is perhaps at her best, for the reason that the spectacle which seems to interest her most is that pageant of “smart” types that race, as if by magic, to her drawing-board, from every haunt of social life—from opera boxes, ballrooms, race-meets, cabarets, smart supper parties, dinners of state, musicales, and the thousand and one happy backgrounds against which the contemporary beau monde is wont to pose and posture.

In the pages of this book the reader will meet only with Miss Fish’s social creations: the double-decked dowagers, the amateur vampires, the horsey horsemen, the diabolically clever little débutantes, the tango addicts, the incurable bridge-players, the worn-out week-end hostesses, and the myriad types of human beings that seem perpetually to haunt the portals of our most exalted society.

For six years, Miss Fish’s sketches have appeared, in America, only in Vanity Fair. For the past two years the British public has only seen her work in Vogue (the British edition), and in The Patrician,—the English edition of Vanity Fair. All the drawings in this book appear here with the permission of Condé Nast, the publisher of Vogue, Vanity Fair, and The Patrician.

The Editor.

List Of Contents
In Which the Scenes and the Principal Characters Are Revealed

HIGH SOCIETY

THE HORSE SHOW

Here we see the horse show in full blast. Here you will see everybody happy, everybody occupied, scandals energetically and effectually discussed, meetings arranged in whispers, society reporters calling everybody by their wrong names, and everybody paying the strictest attention to everything about them—except the horses.

THE RESTAURANTS

The season in the restaurants has opened strong. And the worst of it is that the ladies will spend all their time in these blessed robbers’ dens. Tell a woman that her place is in the home and—but you wouldn’t do anything as rude as that, would you? There are two other discouraging things about women in a restaurant: first, that they won’t ever go home, and second, that they won’t ever sit down. Here we see a tragedy illustrating both of these points. Muriel, who long ago finished her luncheon simply will not join the gentleman in the hallway (the one who looks a little like President Wilson), although the poor creature has been waiting for twenty minutes. And her charming little vis a vis, Esmé by name (the one with the lap dog that looks like a three-leaved clover), has, on her side, been keeping her fiancé standing at attention for a similar period of time—and, all because the two dears have such thrilling and wonderful things to talk about.

The Opening of the Social Season
How the Members of the Beau Monde Will Spend What Is Left of Their War-time Incomes

THE ART SHOWS

Below we see the opening of the Vorticist Sculpture Salon, a debauch in marble that always brings out a full quota of the artistic cognoscenti of the town. Bohemia always appears in goodly numbers at these charming little revels in stone. The extraordinary thing about much of the new sculpture is that it looks like illustrations for those wonderful books on hygiene, in which ladies’ are taking their matutinal exercises—by correspondence, of course. Take, for instance, the case of the delicate little gem entitled “Love” in this illustration. Captain De Pluyster who is viewing it in company with his fiancée, Miss Corinna Walpole, is listening to her: “Oh, that’s an easy one. I do that twenty times, every morning, just before my bath.”

THE FASHION FÊTES

Perhaps the most delightful social occasion of all—at least as far as married men are concerned—is the winter Fashion Fête at Luciline’s select little dressmaking establishment. In the picture, you will observe a married gentleman, accompanied by his gross tonnage. The poor man is not at all listening to Mme. Luciline; no, he is gazing wistfully and, with eyes aflame, toward the wholly divine young ladies who, every season, do so much toward making the happy modes and unmaking the unhappy marriages. “How different would have been my life,” he reflects, “had I met one of those limp and sinuous sirens before I took up with my Henrietta.”

The Opera, in Full Blast
Showing That Things Are Sounding Much
as Usual At the Opera This Year

AN OPERATIC DUET

For upward of a generation, now, operatic and musical matters have gone along much as usual at our opera house. It’s always dangerous to be different, or original, or diverting. Literally, the only novel thing that has happened at the opera this season is that the director’s box, which has always been empty, was, at one performance last week, tenanted by a young gentleman in our best society, along with a tiny little friend of his. To see this usually dim, untenanted cave so decoratively occupied was a welcome change in the monotony of a somewhat uneventful season.

HOME, SWEET HOME

Below, you will behold a little scene in Pneumonia Alley otherwise known as the lobby of the opera. It is here that all of our best people gather, after the opera, and wait for hours for their flunkeys and limousines. Fashionable personages are really much cleverer than mere people are wont to suppose. After twenty years of hard study, they have finally devised a system by which—after the opera—they can wait around in the lobby for their motors and reach their houses only an hour later than they would if they left by the main door and picked up a passing taxi.

HEARTS AND FLOWERS

One of the great tragedies of life is that men and women have a way of saying pleasant things to your face, and truthful things behind it. Nowhere is this practice more prevalent than in grand opera. Above, for instance, you will observe a portrait of Signor Enrico Scottinelli, buttering with fair words the bewitching soprano. Nothing could exceed the sweetness of his remarks to her, during the opera. You know the remarks we mean: “Your eyes are radiant arrows in my soul. Your lips are torments to my heart. Look at me, and an eagle lifts my feet; kiss me, and pansies blossom in my breast.” It’s all very operatic and charming, but, back of the scenes—oh my!—what a difference!—“You call yourself an artist! You, who paid a press agent for every line you ever got in a newspaper! You who were hissed at Monte Carlo. You, who are only kept on here at the opera in order to save storage charges on your body at the warehouse! A singer! Ha! ha! ha! Why don’t you go back to washing? An artist! Corpo di Bacco! Why don’t you go back to scrubbing floors? You, who stand there dressed up like Marguerite! Where is your fur, where are your claws, where are your shiny yellow eyes, cat that you are!” All of this, disheartening and saddening as it is, only proves that social amenities at the opera are very much as they are with us all in real life.

THE SPELL OF MUSIC

Why is it, we wonder, that the people in the first tier boxes at the opera always seem like human beings. Even their tiaras, feathers, and red Indian facial accoutrements, fail wholly to remove them from the category of living creatures. But the inhabitants of the second tier boxes are, somehow, a race apart. Their faces, figures, fans, hair, and bodily habiliments all somehow take on a strange, wild note. “Are they human?” we ask ourselves, “or are they merely some wax figures which we, as children were wont to admire?” In the sketch we see a group of these second-tier creatures suffering intensely under the spell of the director’s baton.

LES TROIS CORYPHÉES

Above is pictured a bright moment from the Ballet of the Rosebud—one of the lighter, sweeter forms of ballet. The plot concerns the love of the Rosebud for the South Wind—the sex interest is always developed early in these little dramas—and it shows how he subsequently leaves her ruthlessly—as it’s against the rules for any ballet to end happily. This scene shows a Trio of Spring Flowers, in action.

THE EIGHT HOUR NIGHT

Below is an intimate glimpse of any gathering any evening, anywhere in the, broadly speaking, civilized world. Now that the war is really over, something had to be found to keep all the men interested,—so the dance habit has come back more strongly than ever. If he can only have seven or eight hours of fox-trotting every evening, a young man will get so that he hardly misses his bayonet practise at all.

Keeping on With the Dance
You Will Certainly Be Considered a Social Pariah if You Don’t Dance the Night Out

In spite of sporadic outbursts of protest from non-dancing editors of hearth-side magazines, the dance craze is still going strong. In fact, it’s more violent than it ever was; it is no longer a mere craze—it has reached the point of frenzy. Any kind of dance goes (whether in Rome, Madrid, New York, Paris or London) from the intricacies of the Russian ballet on the stage of the opera, to the simple little fox trot in the privacy of your own home. Joy has never been so completely unconfined as it is this season; everybody is going on—and on—with the dance. You simply can’t get away from it. No matter where you go, some form of dancing is sure to come into your life, someone is certain to appear suddenly and dance with, beside, in front, or all over you.

MORNING—IN THE PARK

Somebody once got all worked up about dancing and called it the poetry of motion; if you want to go right along with the idea, you might speak of barefoot dancing as the vers libre of motion. No one is quite certain of what it’s all about. The lady in this sketch, a disciple of the art, has left home to run wild in the park at dawn, in a little dance called “The Birth of the Crocus.”

A LEGEND OF RUSSIA

A quiet corner of the Ballet Russe—one of the calmest moments in the company’s entire repertory. Both the lady and gentleman are, of course, stars of the Imperial Ballet of Moscow—they always are. Any male dancer wearing trick red boots, and any female dancer whose costumes are designed by Bakst, instantly becomes a star of the Imperial Theatre of Moscow. This is a scene from “The Golden Vodka,” a drama all about the love of the Princess Soviet for Nikailovitch, the handsome samovar.

THE SOCIETY DERVISHES

This is what some euphemist has delicately called “ballroom dancing.” It occurs at least once in the course of every musical comedy and variety show. The male half of the cast seems forever looking for an opportunity to toss his partner out into the orchestra. Perhaps it’s the element of uncertainty about this sort of dancing that makes it so popular with the public; you never know at just what moment it’s going to prove too much of a strain for the male member of the team, or when the lady in the case is going to land, with a pretty informality, in your lap.

THE DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS

The Dance of Salome seems never to lose its popularity—perhaps the secret of its appeal is the sweet, wholesome joyousness of it all. It requires very few properties. All a girl needs, to give her own version of Salome’s famous specialty, is a plated silver platter, a papier maché head, and the usual lack of costume.

Getting On, in Smart Society
If, at First, You Don’t Succeed, Dine ’em and Dine ’em Again

IN THE INTELLECTUAL SET

The T. Pennypacker Higgingbothams reached the metropolis, a short while ago, from the social ooze of the Texas oil fields. They wanted to break into society, but, alas, a fondness for eating and a fortune of twenty millions were all that they had to do it with. These pictures mirror their progress in the frigid marble-and-gold society of our inhospitable city. They are here shown at their first important dinner—a little repast of eight—at their palace, a palace which, architecturally considered, is a cross between the Temple of Karnak and Charing Cross Station. They are wisely beginning their social climb among the intellectual set. Brains are the best things to climb on until you got fairly high up, when you can safely discard them.

Reading from left to right, T. Pennypacker Higgingbotham; Marietta Pillsbury Powyss, author of “The Fear of Love,” “More Than Kisses”; Frederick von Nippelzow, Professor of Czech, and the Slav and Bulgar languages at Oxford; Miss Sophronisba Ottway, Japanese lacquer worker, Etruscan embosser, designer of Indian art-jewelry; Guido Bruno Pfaff, lecturer on Malthusianism, Mendelism and sea worms; Babette La Rue, smock designer, garden-stick maker, flower-pot varnisher, book-end painter, art stenciler and jig-saw artist; Bliss Merriweather Gow, play-reader, author of nine Shakespearean masques, creator of a ballet entitled “The Birth of Passion”; and, finally, the dazed Hostess, about to go down for the third time.

HEARTS AND DIAMONDS

The Higgingbothams were told that they could do nothing without a social secretary. They accordingly engaged Miss Audrey De Vere, a young lady of lineage. Audrey smokes, drinks, and plays “poker”: she also knows how to get first-night tickets at the theatres and an outside table at a cabaret. She can mix eleven different kinds of cocktails with only one bottle of gin, one lemon, two bottles of Vermouth and a single olive. She is engaged to a war hero—her vis-a-vis at this table. The dinner has been cleared away and Audrey and her friends have just finished a little session with the cards. Net result: the T. Pennypacker Higgingbothams are minus the value of one small Texas oil well.

THE RECEPTION COMMITTEE

Front elevation of Mr. and Mrs. H. at the head of the grand stairway leading to the gold organ room in their palace. Mr. and Mrs. H. are expecting forty more or less strangers to dine with them. Gold favors will be found under the napkins. Twenty pairs of footmen’s calves, in wood, have just been successfully adjusted by the H’s footmen, in the magenta and gold dining room, brought, at some expense, from Verocchio’s palace in Venice.

THE ATTACK ON BOHEMIA

The Higgingbothams have not, on the whole, been very successful in their attacks on the smart set, so they are at present engaged in entertaining Bohemia. Here you see a section of it let loose in the Verocchio dining-room. Reading from left to right: Mr. H., somewhat at a loss to know how to manage the bright young thing on his left; Miss Tessie Truefitt, artists’ model, understudy to a barefoot dancer, poses for Jo Davidson; Le Roy Eastman, socialist, drawing room anarchist, author of “The Red Flag in Spain,” lectures on Government Ownership of Women; Theda B. Small, film vampire, the worst woman in the city, rolls her own cigarettes, never wears stockings; Archibald Witherspoon Troutt, fashion artist, introduced the hoop in men’s evening coats, is suing Lady Duff Gordon for stealing his ideas (note the Byron collar and the Hero tie); Polly Pym, keeps a restaurant in the Apache region—paper napkins, waiters in red shirts, pipe smoking allowed, eau de quinine served from straw bottles, choral singing and recitations; Aristede Le Blanc, French Impressionist, paints with a palette knife; and, finally, poor Mrs. H., speechless at the wild and wanton scene around.

SUCCESS AT LAST

The Higgingbothams have had bad luck with their dinners and have now decided to try nothing but little suppers after the opera. Here we behold them with Mr. and Mrs. Lestranges, who compose the thickest part of the social cream. The Higgingbothams have at last arrived. They have a loge at the opera and know so many great people that they can perfectly well afford to discard all their intellectuals, social secretaries and Bohemians—all of them now unnecessary and de trop. The Lestranges have already refused three courses at supper and are now engaged in inspecting the little Escargots, à la Melba.

HE’S A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW

Mr. Higgingbotham has at last been permitted to join an ancient social club. He is here enjoying a bottle or two of his famous private stock, Veuve Clicquot, 1883, gray label, silver foil: only two cases in the world—and Mr. Higgingbotham owns them both.

Hints on Honeymoons—For the Very Rich
How to Make a Smart Honeymoon—Comparatively Speaking—Agreeable

PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES

A type of honeymoon which is not seen very much now is the War Brand. The lady mooner in the sketch below (she is the one leaning against the tree) is Colonel of the First Daffodils, and, of course, the flower of the regiment. The gentleman mooner is the Captain of the 7th Scotch Sodas. They are taking their honeymoon in little slices, between drills, as it were; not a bad system, as it prevents the happy young warriors from becoming fed up with the sweetness of love.

THE COTTAGE OF DREAMS

Oh, honeymooners, do you remember the little creeper-covered cottage to which You and She planned to fly immediately after the Voice had breathed o’er Eden? It was millions of miles from home, that little rose-colored paradise, and there wasn’t to be any telephone, and letters were not to be forwarded, and mother couldn’t annoy you, and you were going to pick heartsease in the garden,—and then you found you couldn’t afford it, and so you settled in a suburban villa in solitary exile.

ALONE, AT LAST

The moment in the honeymoon, which is pictured below, is technically known as the enfin seuls. The parents have been banished, the best man is still in wine; the bridemaids are at the photographer’s, the footmen have gone to chase up the entrée, and the lovers are at last alone with their J-HOY. What a blissful moment! Six months later a moment like this is a bit of a bore. Any third person then, even a dun from the tailor, would be welcome, for love, alas, is like caviare; a little indigestible—unless consumed in very small portions.

WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE

The yachting honeymoon is always a mistake. If anybody offers you a yacht for your honeymoon don’t accept it. The trouble with the ocean, for social purposes, is that it has no kind of taxi service. Take the case of Mr. and Mrs. Boodle-Beauty, who would have died of loneliness if it hadn’t been for bridge. Fortunately, a cook and a sailor knew their way about the card deck. Hearts would come into the bridegroom’s hand, but, with the bride, everything was diamonds.

THE EXPRESS TO EDEN

Showing the bride and groom at the station just before the departure of the Eden express. Note the almost amorous gentleness with which the sentimental porters are caring for the slippered luggage. Good luck to you, happy newlyweds, before you pass into the Beatific Blue! Good luck, and here’s hoping that the train is a limited express, with no “stop-overs” in Nevada.

AMOUR DE VOYAGE

Of course, most honeymoons take place at hotels. Such wonderful food, and such dim, religious corners in the corridors. And it makes letters home so ridiculously easy. “Dear Mamma, and all: Arthur and I arrived last night. So, so happy. We are very comfortable. Arthur tries to be very cruel, but, so far, I have had no trouble in sitting on him.”

The Poets That Bloom in the Spring
A Popular New Pastime in Smart Society—the Matinée Poétique

New York, and other American cities, have lately had a visiting procession of foreign poets. Robert Nichols, W. B. Yeats, Siegfried Sasson, John Drinkwater and Lord Dunsany have given ringing poetry recitals, and added greatly to their laurels. Here we have the latest arrival from English shores, Lonsdale Thornditch, the young poet, who finds compensation for the indifference of the British public by reciting his verse to the appreciative audience of America. With the present rate of exchange, and everything, Mr. Thornditch feels very well compensated. He is here seen in the futuristic salon of Mrs. Updike Jones, in New York, reading from his still-unpublished volume, “Skeletons in Scarlet.” His poems are most effective when read aloud, as may be judged from observing the prostrate illuminati about him. We cannot see why this pretty idea of lending literati to other lands should not be taken up by America. Why not redeem America’s literary debt and introduce the people of England to the joys—and even horrors—of the imported poetry recital.

The Art Exhibition: Opening Day
After All, There Is Nothing Like Modern Sculpture to Stimulate the Imagination

There was a time when one visited the Natural History Museums to observe Nature’s latest vagaries in the shape of undeveloped amoebæ in bowls, rudimentary horns on recently unearthed amphibians, and models of funny little puffins, and green lizards, who had gone wrong while still in a pre-natal state.

Now one may see all these little jokes of Mother Nature at any fashionable exhibition of ultra modernist sculpture. The city is full of them. You are probably familiar with them. Here, for instance, are a few, which have been named by their creators as follows—reading from left to right—along the very top row: “The Birth of Love,” “Portrait of My Wife,” “Study of a lady,” “Fruitage,” “Inhibited Motherhood” and, finally, “The Death of Libido.”

A Week-End With the Recently Rich
Showing That a Profiteer Is Without Honour in His Own Country

OUR HERO

Mr. John R. Blivvins, of America, one of the leading figures in that noble band of munitions factory owners who did such yeoman service—for themselves—all through the great conflict. However, even though peace is here, there is still work to be done,—Mr. Blivvins is about to crash in on British Society. By way of a start in the right direction, he has purchased—at 10 per cent discount for cash—an ancestral estate equipped with all the modern conveniences, including built-in butlers, hot and cold running footmen at all hours, and a resident bishop. Everything goes with the estate but the title, and Mr. Blivvins looks to his attractive daughter, Angelica, to furnish that, by marrying one.

A HORRIBLE MOMENT

Up to this moment, everything has gone along beautifully. Angelica has worked up a visiting Duke to the proposal point, and Mr. Blivvins has behaved so conservatively that the dinner guests are on the verge of accepting him. And then he had to wreck the entire works. Led away by too conscientious attention to the products of the ancestral wine-cellar, Mr. B. is, with unfortunate geniality, insisting that the footman try one of his best cigars. The Duke might overlook this, but the footman—never.

THE COMMITTEE OF WELCOME

This moment marks the dawn of a new life for the Blivvins family. Their future seems to be practically assured. Angelica, the one and only daughter, has got in some deadly work on one of the local Dukes, who has been pressed into coming down for the week-end. To make it all delightfully homelike, the Duke has brought along his sister, one of the most unmarried noble-women in the entire United Kingdom. This charming little domestic scene shows the arrival of the guests, just at tea time. Angelica is going strong with the Duke (his is the third figure from the right—the clean-cut, red-blooded lad of barely seventy summers). Mr. Blivvins is welcoming the bishop to the little circle—a bishop is always so ornamental when draped gracefully around a tea-table.

THE EROTIC MOTIVE

This picture does not show the great moment in any one of our popular farces,—it is far more tragic than that. It shows how Mr. Blivvins—always an artist at that sort of thing—has managed to get himself disliked. In an absent-minded moment—all life’s bitter tragedies happen in such moments—our hero has mistaken a door, and walked into the room where the Duke’s sister has retired to her chaste repose. The noble vestal is defending her honor at the point of a curling-iron, shrieking, “Stop, villain, or I fire.”

THE GRAND TOUR

The snappy little evening’s entertainment—Mr. Blivvins takes his guests on a personally conducted tour of the picture galleries, proudly pointing out all of his ancestral portraits—that came with the house, when he bought it. Of course, a little of that sort of thing is perfectly ripping, but, after the first eight miles, picture galleries seem to pall a bit. The Duke’s sister is plainly bored.

ON WITH THE DANCE

Things are looking considerably brighter here. Angelica has had the inspiration of injecting a little jazz into the Duke’s attentions. After all, dukes are but human; they can’t hold out against a jazz. The noble antique has dropped forty years from his age, and is dancing with all the abandon of a chorus man. Nothing could be sweeter, so far as Angelica’s proud parents are concerned, but the bishop and the Duke’s sister,—oh, Heavens!

THE BITTER END

And this is the hideous conclusion of the whole affair. The Duke is indubitably not as young as he used to be, and the jazz dance has brought on a complete breakdown. He has to be ignominiously led away to Mortgaged Towers, the ducal estate, in a bath chair. The Blivvins family plumbs the utmost depths of gloom—and all bets on Angelica’s marriage into the British peerage have been officially declared off.

THE DANCE OF THE GHOULS

A view of the extreme left wing of the balcony, during a piano recital by the newest Russian prodigy. The members of this exclusive little group simply don’t know how they would ever get along without music. If it weren’t for music, they would be absolutely powerless to express their souls. Nothing is over their heads. Debussy to them is just like nothing at all to you or me, and they whistle catchy little tunes by Rimsky-Korsakoff in their bath-tubs. They are shown here still a trifle spent with enthusiasm after the pianist has obliged with one of his own compositions, entitled, “Dance of the Ghouls.”

LONG MAY HE PERMANENTLY WAVE

The world-famous pianist, who was once told that he had a Beethoven-like brow and has been dressing the part ever since. He can only manage to work in one concert annually; the rest of his time is taken up in making phonograph and pianola records, posing for heavily shadowed photographs, paying premiums for the insurance on his hands, and lending atmosphere and tone to the more exclusive studio teas.

NO COAXING

The society soprano—always a feature of the programme for the charity concert. It is pretty to see how gladly she volunteers her services for such events; there is no false modesty about it, no hanging back, no making excuses, no insistence on being coaxed, no niggardliness as to encores. No, she steps right forward, brings her music, supplies her own accompanist, and just lets herself go. She is here portrayed at work, rendering, by her own request, “Baby’s Boat’s the Silver Moon.”

On the Trail of the Concert Lovers
“Among Those Present”—at All the Smart Concert Halls

THE INFANT PRODIGY

The little dear has been appearing in public for the last four years—she is soon to celebrate her seventh birthday—and has played in every country in Europe, before all the royalty worth knowing, adding materially to the uneasiness of the crowned heads. This wonder-kiddie, as her press-agent so affectionately calls her, never had a lesson in her life; it’s a gift. It has also proved to be a gift to the father of the phenomenon—he hasn’t done a day’s work in years.

THE MALE DUET

The male, broadly speaking, duet—a great favorite with concert audiences. They go in strongly for the brighter, cleaner school of song; they are particularly good in those ballads about shepherds and shepherdesses, named Colin and Phyllis. They also get in some really great work on the botanical numbers; those heartbreaking ditties with the mild sex interest, all about the love of the violet for the rose.

AMONG THOSE PRESENT

A pack of concert-hounds about to corner their prey—straining at their leashes in the foyer of the concert hall, just before the performance gets under way. All the best-known types of the species are here represented, from the strange beings who are here because they like this sort of thing, to the pitiful creatures who have to come—because their wives like it.

The Trials of the Newly Poor
A Heart-rending Picture of Life as it is Lived Behind Aristocratic Doors

THE IDEALS OF ALGY

What a topsy-turvy old world it is. And how its recent antics have upset our very highest Society! For a smart young Johnny to-day, Peace hath its horrors just as well as War. Imagine being a Penniless Peer, as was young Algernon Wemyss (of Wimbledon) when sterling-exchange suddenly established its low-visibility record. But, did the brave lad falter? Well, hardly. With only his coronet for capital, he strolled into the pleasant supper parties, of the musical comedy field, finally playing, with great success, the title-role in “The Ideals of Algy,” two of which he may be seen embracing as he takes his first step toward rehabilitating the shattered fortunes of his proud old family.

BACK TO NATURE

But there was, to Algy, something raffish about the stage. Once on his financial feet again, he realized that the smartest possible form of trade, for a chap with his tastes, is that of the creator of lovely frocks for lovely maidens. And—no sooner said than done! In less than two weeks Algy was known, far and wide, as the man who made Poiret take to French brandy. Algy’s little shop was a rendezvous for every fair lady with any pretensions to chic. But alas! he hopelessly offended his very best customer, Mlle. Nini Latouche, of the Opera. Nini had him black listed everywhere, with the result that the shutters were soon up at Algy’s.

THE PEER AND THE PERI

It is something of a drop from the frills of fashion to the grease and grime of being a fashionable chauffeur; but needs must when the problem of high living drives. Having owned cars all his life, Algy naturally spoke the language perfectly and found no difficulty in landing a job with Abraham Ashurst, the Mattress King. Unfortunately, Algy became much less interested in the mechanism of his car than in the personality of its daily occupant—Miss Annabelle Ashurst who simply doted on ignitions, and everything connected with speed, including the chauffeur. Observing, from his classic portico, that Algy was more of a magneto than a man-servant, father Abraham banished him forthwith from his richly upholstered bosom.

DE PROFUNDIS

And now we see Algy in that darkest hour which comes before dawn—joyless and jobless, and yet still able to derive a certain bitter amusement from a new game of solitaire which he plays exclusively with unpaid bills. The idea is to work the things into two piles, in one of which the certificates of indebtedness shall equal the accounts receivable in the other. We may add that, in this pathetic pastime, Algy has just failed to go game for the thirty-seventh time.

SUCCESS AT LAST

Hurrah for Algy! Like an inspiration came his last and best idea, to capitalize his nimble feet and become a dancing instructor. Below, you see him at the turning-point of his career, just as the maid is informing him that a fabulously rich Miss Detworthy has arrived for her first instruction. Note the enraptured expression of Miss D. (the lady with the circular marks on her gown). Note the appreciative glance of our hero. And so, at last, Algy is able to witness the triumph, in his unhappy life, of Romance, Laughter, and Love.

MILLY, THE LIGHT-WEIGHT

As the subsequent series of ringside flash-lights indicates, all the world’s fashionable fair ones have taken up the maidenly art of self-defense. Everybody’s doing it—both in London and New York. The Wilson family is a typical example. Dainty Millicent, shown at right, is prominently mentioned to win the Junior cup. No more breakfast in bed for Milly. Vanished, the boredom of banting. An eight o’clock round with the punching bag and the girl’s day has really begun.

The Prize Fight Finally Gets into Society
The Smartest Diversion Is Now the Science of the Swat and the Slam

MILADY, THE WELTER-WEIGHT

On the right is Millicent’s mama, who, as the picture clearly shows, is rapidly rounding into championship form. Her sparring partner, kind-hearted old Harry Wilson, who is both outweighted and outranged, labors under the added disadvantage of being, in private life, the lady’s husband. The male half of the bout is plainly covering-up. One false blow,—a cross-counter to any one of his adversary’s chins, for example,—and Harry could be haled into the nearest court on a charge of mass murder.

Showing how the smartest dowagers of the sea lion class are waking up to the need of fighting their way into the bear-cat class. It’s only in play, of course, but it’s wicked play.

THE LADY BANTAM

Below, we see little sister Grace, home from school for the holidays and, of course, mad about boxing, as all the rest of society is. The young parson, bless his pale pink soul, has inquired about the extra-curriculum activities of Grace’s schoolmates, not for a moment expecting that the answer to his innocent interest would be a blow in the Adam’s-apple. This, Grace explains, is the favorite blow of M. Carpentier. An intriguing phase of the tragedy is the delight of old Mrs. Brown, who sits in the right-hand, ring-side armchair, and who has secret designs on the parson—in the shape of her daughter, the adjacent young person who looks a little like a turban-ed turkey’s-egg.

A CHARMING EVENING IN HIGH SOCIETY

Just now boxing is all the rage in the great and wicked metropolis. Set-to’s happen in the best regulated sets. Nothing, for instance, could have kept the last Sutherby dinner-party awake, after ten, had it not been the perfectly arranged post-prandial entertainment provided by these thoughtful hosts. In spite of an abundance of wines, Lucullan dishes, triple extract of mocha, and an orchestra of twelve saxophones, the party was dying on its feet, until Madame S. escorted the guests to the ballroom where a ring greeted their eyes. From that point on, the weary guests came out of their slumbers, and gaiety reigned supreme.

THE CARELESS CRITIC

The unexpected is always interesting but it is sometimes frightfully disturbing, as well. For instance, here is Miss Emily Rivington, who has gone to a dance and has just remarked, over her left shoulder, to her friend Lucille Taplow—“I ask you, my dear, have you ever seen anything more hideous than this room?” Of course, the poor child was entirely unaware of the fact that her hostess had pussyfooted her way into the room just in time to receive, point blank, the full force of little Emily’s remarks.

Dreadful Moments in Society
Embarrassing Little Episodes Which Might Happen to Even the Best of Us

ART FOR THE ARTLESS

If Algy Appleton’s fiancée had shown him something easy to understand in the way of art—like an insurance calendar or the cover of a seed catalogue—he might have been able to murmur something intelligent, but when, in the presence of the sculptor, she led him up to a portrait of herself done in the most modern manner, the poor boy’s mental motor went absolutely dead.

SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE

What is a modern ménage without its little affaire de coeur? Surely, those whose hearts still find room for romance will pity the plight of charming Mrs. Francklyn Sunderland who finds herself, as it were, between two fires, one of which warms the slippers of her home-loving husband, while the other crackles over the telephone in the burning words of Mrs. S.’s latest and very best beau. Mrs. S.’s situation is rapidly growing desperate. Query! What should she do?

THE GREAT UNKNOWN

Marian Holworthy’s right-hand dinner neighbor is the guest of honor and a tremendous genius of some sort, but, for the life of her, Marian cannot think what his specialty is. She has tried him on Art, Music, and Literature without eliciting more than a grunt and is wondering whether she ought to ask him, right out, whether he works for a living.

POVERTY AND RICHES

Poor penniless Dick Wadleigh is in a dreadful fix. He has promised that he will tender his heart and hand to Loretta Lorillard, the rich sister of his over-seas American chum. And now he is gazing upon the lady for the first time and finding that she is, socially and physically speaking, a dud. Just to make things pleasanter, brother Lorillard is hoarsely whispering: “Do it now, old boy, do it now.”

ENTER THE HERO

Having tried everything else at least once, our hero feels that it is only fair to see if there’s anything in matrimony, so he has set forth in quest of something really good in the way of a wife. He is here shown at the conclusion of his affair with Mirabel, a debutante with every qualification of the Perfect Helpmate. But just as everything was getting pleasantly arranged he discovered her secret vice—she is a slave to free verse. She pours out her soul in unfettered rhythms for a whole evening and, really, he never could have anything like that in the house.

On the Trail of a Wife
Détours on the Road to Matrimony

THE SECOND ENTRY

The next event in the series is Phyllis, who specializes in Early Victorian work—blushes, swoons, down-cast eyes, dropped handkerchiefs, and all the rest. Our hero was just about to fall a prey to her appealing femininity and beg her to name the bridesmaids. And then they chanced to drop in at an informal little sparring match, and he caught a glimpse of Phyllis’ inner nature (Phyllis is here pictured in action). Our hero is painfully realizing that this effectually shatters his dream of a sunny married life.

EXHIBIT C

Reader, let us present Chloe, Exhibit C in our hero’s collection of possibilities. From the moment he met Chloe he was intrigued; he followed her about doggedly, always pining to see more of her. Alas, he got his wish when he invited her to the opera, and she appeared in her new Paris gown. Although he feels that, after seeing her in the dress, the ethical thing to do would be to marry her, he cannot help insisting on having a little illusion left—so he regretfully passes out of her life.

THE ORDEAL BY AIR

The next in the batting order is Daphne, who appeared, for a time, to be the Ultimate One. In fact, it was all practically settled until she invited our hero to accompany her on a little jaunt in her aeroplane. He felt that there were few lengths to which he wouldn’t go on the ground, but up in the air was unmistakably something else again; so he progressed easily to the next young siren on the list.

THE SAD CASE OF PEGGY

And then there was Peggy. Really, he couldn’t have found a more perfect helpmate than Peggy—civil to her parents, pleasant to have around a bridge table, fond of children and potted plants. Nothing could have been sweeter—until she took him out motoring. He is here registering a silent vow that if he ever gets home all in one piece, he will never permit himself to so much as gaze upon his adorable little Peggy again.

ANOTHER BLOW

By turning your head just a trifle to the left, you will got a rather good idea of Dolores, the next to crash in our hero’s youthful affections. He was in a fair way to get all worked up over Dolores’ vamping specialties—until in a confidential moment she laid bare her strange, exotic, Ballet Russe sort of soul to him.... After that he knew that things between them twain could never be the same again.

THE BITTER END

And just below is the end of the whole affair; trying out a half-dozen of the most efficient sirens of his acquaintance, our hero finally marries Mary, who rates about minus 30 in looks, brains, and charm. No one has ever discovered why the veteran of countless affairs always eventually marries a complete physical and intellectual blank. As the proverb so aptly puts it, matrimony does make strange bedfellows.

THE DAWN OF A NEW LIFE

Perhaps the sweetest time in a girl’s life is that roseate moment when she gets her first divorce. It is a time that comes but once to a girl. When at last her final decree arrives, she stands, in innocent wonder, on the threshold of a new life. What pretty, girlish dreams are hers as she goes out into the great world in search of a minister, so that she can start things all over again.

THE ENDLESS CHAIN

Only the shortage of white paper prevented the artist from prolonging the above idea indefinitely. It is the motif for a frieze entitled “Matrimony”—rather a quaint little conception, isn’t it? If you are at all married—or even if you are only an innocent bystander—you will get the idea without a struggle. As soon as divorce mercifully looses one set of shackles, a change of partners is rapidly effected, new bonds are formed—and there they are, right back at the very beginning again.

Divorce: A Great Indoor Sport
It is Beginning to Rank First Among Our Fashionable and Popular Pastimes

THE FLAW

There is, unfortunately, a bad hitch in the process of obtaining a divorce. They haven’t perfected the method, as yet—it needs a lot of working over. This having to wait about for months or years is really too tiresome; it cuts in so on one’s time. Why, any really earnest worker, going on the schedule of a forty-four-hour week, could be married and divorced three or four times over in the time it now takes a lady to be legally free from only one husband.

THE DIVORCE SPECIAL

Any time that you want to see a bit of life, go to an American railway station and watch the outgoing trains to Nevada. Several ticket agents have to be constantly on duty in the window where both-way tickets to Reno are sold; one man couldn’t keep up with the rush of trade. A typical line at the ticket office is shown here—it is considered de rigueur for husbands to accompany their outgoing wives to the train. If you are contemplating a jaunt to the nation’s reconstruction center in the near future, it is a bit safer to book seats several weeks ahead.

OLD HOME WEEK

It is so nice for the new bridegroom to meet his wife’s collection of former husbands. It is something for him to look forward to, all through the honeymoon. These little gatherings are so delightfully home like—it is reassuring to feel that you are all members of the same club.

BACK TO THE START AGAIN

This little scene is the sort of thing that divorce leads to,—hope springs eternal, and all that. A divorce simply gets one into the right frame of mind for a fresh start in matrimony. After all, Nature will have its own way; there’s nothing like love—it is the passion to which the best divorce lawyers attribute their success.

Wild Bores We Have Met
Question! Who—in Society—Is the Unadulterated, 100 Per Cent. Bore?

BEHIND THE “TIMES”

Bores may be met with at all times of the day, but none bores so blightingly as he who bores at breakfast. Who more completely spoils a déjeuner than the hideous male shown above who absolutely refuses to pick up his cues in the sweet little matutinal dialogue?