Chapter 2
Chapter 2 of But Gentleman Mary Burnett's by Anita Luce. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Jen Broda. Chapter 2 Well, I soon found out that the most literary environment in New York is the Algonquin Hotel,
where all the literary geniuses eat their luncheon. Because every genius who eats his luncheon at the Algonquin Hotel is always writing that that is the place where all the great literary geniuses eat their luncheon. So I invited Dorothy to accompany me and go there at luncheon time. But Dorothy said that if I wanted to meet highbrows, she was going to a literary party
that was being held by George Jean Nathan at a place in Jersey that is noted for serving the kind of beer that is made without ether. And Mr. H.L. Menchkin, Theodore Drescher, Sherwood Anderson, Sinclair Lewis, Joseph Hergesheimer, and Ernest Boyd would be there. So I said to Dorothy, if they are all so literary, why do they go to a place like New Jersey,
which is chiefly noted for being inartistic? And the only reason that Dorothy could think up was on account of the beer. But I finally decided to go because some of them do write quite well-read novels. But if anybody thinks that what they held in New Jersey was a literary salon, they would really be mistaken because they did not even mention their literary work.
And nobody could have heard them if they had because they kept putting nickels in an electric piano and breaking into risque songs. And I think that when literary people wish to hold a musical evening, it is more artistic to buy tickets to some good opera. But I should have known enough to have my doubts about the literature of any literary
gentleman who have friendships with an unmental girl like Dorothy. So the next day, I made Dorothy go to luncheon at the Algonquin Hotel, and that made up for everything. For they are the critics who tell everybody else how to do it, and they know how to act. I mean after all, they spend practically all their time showing everybody else how literary
people ought to act. Well, we went to luncheon at the Algonquin Hotel quite early, so that we could actually see them walk in. And I have learned that the best way to get a table near someone where you want to sit is to become friendly with the head waiter.
Well, the famous head waiter at the Algonquin is called George, who holds a velvet rope across the doorway of a small exclusive dining room to keep people who do not appreciate genius from going where they do not belong. Or they also have a more unexclusive dining room for the benefit of the masses. Well, I told George that we wished to sit near the famous literary round table where
we could overhear them say something or other. So George gave us the very nearest table of all, and the waiter who waited on us was the very one who waits on them himself. So the waiter and I broke into a conversation, and it came out that his name was not only Tony, but he was full of ideals too.
It really seems that the more I see of everybody, the more I realize that you never know who you are talking to. Because Tony told me that a man's body may only be a Greek waiter, but his soul may be full of all the culture of the ancient Greeks themselves. I mean it seems that Tony was raised to be a gentleman because his father was quite a
prominent Grecian who also had a son that was legitimate. So Tony's father put them both together and educated them by a tutor in all of the classics of the Grecian days. But Tony's father had become quite fed up with Tony's mother, and so he got a Turkish chum of his to arrange for her to be present at an atrocity.
It seems that the Turkish enjoy nothing so much as an atrocity, and Tony thinks it is the result of prohibition. Because the Turkish have always had prohibition, and Tony says that when things begin to get on a Turk's nerves, he cannot go out and have a drink and forget it, but he finally reaches the point where he has to do something violent in a hurry.
And Tony says that when he reads about the novel kind of murders we Americans can think up and the enjoyable times we have at all of our murder trials, we Americans remind him quite a lot of the Turkish. So that is what made Tony think it is the result of prohibition. So I paid Tony a compliment for his brains in thinking things out, and Dorothy said she
would pay him another one for some chicken hash in a hurry. So he had to stop his conversation and go get it, because at luncheon time, Dorothy's mind practically always runs on the subject of food, while I never seem to notice whether I'm eating or not, so long as I am learning something. Well, when Tony came back, I asked him to tell me all about the geniuses of the round
table, and it turned out that he knows them quite well, for they are all very fond of him. I mean, most waiters are more interested in tips than they are in listening to geniuses converse, and the waiter that they had before Tony was quite a low Greek, from Sardinopoulos, who had practically no interest in culture.
But Tony is different, and he listens with all his ears, and he hears even more than the geniuses do themselves, because they are so busy thinking up some cute remark to make next that they never have time to do any listening. Well, the first genius who came in was Joel Crabtree, the great writer who writes a long column every day on the subject of everything.
I mean, providing it happened to some friend of his, because it makes Mr. Crabtree feel very, very good to have everybody think that his friends are greater geniuses than anybody else's friends. So the day never goes by that every one of his friends are not mentioned in his literary column, and all of the public that is interested in literature enough to read it can find out
what they have been doing every hour of the day or night. So naturally, they are always trying to do something readable on purpose, like a match game of amusing tiddlywinks, or charades at one another's parties, or some laughable croquet championship in Central Park where you can draw quite a crowd with almost anything. So then the famous critic of the drama came in, called Harry Appleby, and his job is to
discover girls who remind him of Doucet. And it really is quite difficult, because if you discover a girl, she naturally has to be quite young, and when a girl is so young, she never seems to have as much technique as Doucet had. But Mr. Appleby always overlooks that point if she is cute enough in other ways, because
there is nothing that this great critic of drama loves so much as an actress or even an actor being cute. And if a play is cute in addition, he feels that the height of drama has occurred at last. So Tony loves to listen to Mr. Appleby, and then he writes to his cousin at Athens that he has practically been listening to Sophocles.
I mean he has to mention names that his cousin can understand, because Tony says his cousin ignorant fellow, and he would no more know that Mr. Appleby was a famous genius at the Algonquin than Mr. Appleby would know that Sophocles was a famous genius at Greece. And the next literary genius who came in was Peter Hood, the writer, who is always falling in love with some new girl.
And when a genius falls in love with a lady genius, Tony says, there is hell to pay, because he cannot go off and have an affair and keep his mouth shut like a waiter, but he has to talk it all over with his wife, and then they have to look it up in the psychoanalysis, and then they have to talk it all over with all the other geniuses, and they really never get any conclusion on the subject.
Well, finally all of the geniuses were present at last, and the way the conversation worked out was really remarkable. As first, one genius said to another, what was that screamingly funny remark you made last Tuesday? So then he told it, and they all laughed.
And then it was his turn to ask, and what was that terribly clever thing you said on Friday? So then the other genius got his chance, and it was all give and take so that everybody had an opportunity to talk about himself. But then Mr. Ernest Boyd came in and sat right down at their table, and I am sure that
he was not welcome, because he was the one at Mr. Nathan's party in New Jersey who rendered the most unrefined song of the whole evening. So how could he appreciate the kind of conversation they hold at the Algonquin? But he really seemed to laugh louder than anyone, I mean he even laughed when nobody else did, and they finally had to cast dark looks in his direction.
So then they all started to tell about a famous trip they took to Europe. And they had a marvelous time, because everywhere they went, they would sit in the hotel and play cute games and tell reminiscences about the Algonquin. I think it is wonderful to have so many internal resources that you never have to bother to go outside of yourself to see anything.
So then Mr. Boyd spoke up and asked what fellow literatures did you meet on your trip abroad? I mean Mr. Boyd does not know the etiquette of holding a conversation, and he kept asking questions that had very little reply. But it turned out that one of them did have a letter to a literatur called James Joyce, but he did not bother to present it, because he said after all, James Joyce did not know
who he was, and why bother to meet somebody who knew so little about the Algonquin that he probably would think it meant a tribe of uncivilized Indians. But Mr. Boyd went right on and said, why didn't you take a sporting chance and meet him? He might have had something to say. And then they told Mr. Boyd that every time they met somebody new, they had to stop and
explain all of their personal illusions before their jokes could be laughed at, and it only wasted everybody's time. And I really do not know why the geniuses at the Algonquin should bother to learn about Europe any more than Europe bothers to learn about them. So they came back because they like the Algonquin best after all, and I think it is remarkable,
because the old proverb tells about the prophet who was without honor in his own home, but with them it is just the reverse. Well, Dorothy finally finished her chicken hash and spoke up and said that she had overheard enough intellectual conversation for one day, so she was going out to hunt up a friend of hers who only talks about himself when he has a toothache.
And I was really glad she went, because then something happened that was really embarrassing, but it ended up becoming one of the greatest thrills of my life. I mean, Mr. Boyd looked over and noticed me, so of course I had to throw him a smile. And then he turned and addressed the whole round table and said, gentlemen, you are always a Doucet or a Sappho or a Cleopatra every week, and I think it is my turn, because I
have discovered a young lady who was all three rolled into one. May I have the permission to bring Mrs. Henry Spofford over to the table? Well, they really pay very little attention to anything Mr. Boyd says, but they said they did not mind. So he escorted me over to their table and introduced me, and almost all of them nodded
to me, and some of them even spoke. And they let me sit there until luncheon was all over. Well, Mr. Hood noted my reverence for everything they said, and he finally told me that he realized I had more in me than I looked, so he issued me an invitation to come to luncheon every day.
And I really would not be surprised, from the way he acted, if I turned out to be the next one to end up in a psychoanalysis with Mr. Hood. And when I told Dorothy, she said it would do him a world of good, because I would know what to do in such a case, and he would get somewheres at last. So I may even turn out to be similar to the great inspirations of history.
Well, the next thing I had to do was join the Lucy Stone League, so that I could keep my own maiden name after matrimony. Because a girl's name should be sacred, and when she uses her husband's, it only sinks her identity. And when a girl always insists on her own maiden name, with violence, it lets people
know that she must be important some place or other. And quite a good place to insist on an unmarried name is when you go to some strange hotel accompanied by a husband. Because when the room clerk notes that a girl with a maiden name is in the same room with a gentleman, it starts quite a little explanation, and makes a girl feel quite prominent before
everybody in the lobby. But Dorothy said I had better be careful. I mean she says that most Lucy Stoners do not really worry the room clerk, because they are generally the type that are only brought to hotels on account of matrimony. But Dorothy said that when Henry and I waltz in and ask for a room with my maiden name,
the clerk would probably take one good look at me and hand Henry a room in the local jail for the man act. But I do not listen to any advice about literature from a girl like Dorothy. And so I joined it, and now I can write my book without my identity being sunk by having the name of a husband to crush me.
End of chapter 2
