Evening Star Newspaper, June 21, 1931, Page 81

TON, D. C, JUNE 21, 1931 ’e 11 - tory of the Younger Set— BY BOOTH TARKINGTON cup packed with ice-water-soaked newspaper landed on the middle of my neck.” membership feel that at last the club’s got a splendid House Committee chairman!” It can't be denied that incidents like this were kind of gratifying to me, or that it did begin right then to seem to me more or less the way ‘Mr. Alistover has said, and that the Rocky Meadow Club house ought to be treated as if it were practically my own property. In- deed, the fact is that before the first week of my chairmanship was over I'd gotten the habit of regarding things pretty much in that light. I had most of the furnjture moved around in & way that suited me better, and it was quite a pleasure to me to see how the steward had my orders obeyed the minute I delivered them. I guess there isn't much doubt it's true that a sense of power in these sociable matters: does go to a person’s head quite a good deal. I hadn't noticed any change in myself, of course, and there’s no getting away from the fact that I got pretty indignant when Mrs. Massey ‘began trying to point it out. Id always thought the furniture in our cottage could be changed around in a way that would be more comfortable; so one afternoon when she was out I had everything placed the way I thought it ought to be; but the minute she got home she said “What en earth!” and began to shove things back, herself, to where they had been. We had quite an argument over it and she ended by saying she wished we'd never come to Mary’s Neck at all. She went so far as to tell me that I was acting like a spoiled child, and backed it up by saying that Clarissa and Enid thought so, too. “Why, you're like a different man!” she told me. “You've got so you just want to run everything, and you're making your children unhappy by interfering in their affairs.” “How?” I said. “How am I interfering in eir affairs?” “Why, every way,” she said. “You've taken on a dictatorial tone with them that you never used before, and you attempt to order em around in a voice you'd never dream of ing to people working for the Logansville ght & Power Company. Look what you flid yesterday to poor Clarissa!” “What'd she tell you?” I asked, pretty angry. ‘'What'd she tell you I did?” “You mortified her at the club so awfully at she came home and almost had a fit!” “What!” I said. “Why, she and two of these oys that tag after her had been swimming in e pool, then came screeching into the club house, ran all over the place and then flopped hemselves right down in their wet bathing juits in three of the best chairs I've got there! ey ruined the cushions so completely I had o have new ones ordered. I certainly made it ear that I wasn’t going to allow such occur- ences to be repeated. I reproved her and her ends.” “Yes, I guess you did!” Mrs. Massey said, tting me off pretty loudly. “My goodness! never saw a man get so pompous in so short time in my life! It wasn't so mueh over hat you said to her that Clarissa had a fit hen she got home. What upset her so much as having her father make an exhibiticn of imself before her friends.” “Exhibition?” I said. “Do you mean to say he applied that term to—" “Oh, please do go on out of here!” Mrs. assey told me. “I want to get this furni- lkre to rights again, and you're in my way. ?nd take a walk with your old chairman- pt” I thought it best not to say anything more, t just to give her a severer look and go out. seemed to me that a kind of bothersone ge was coming over her, and that she hsn’t herself. Up ’till lately a man could dly have asked for an amiabler wife than had most always tried to be, and so, to ve her attack me out of a clear sky, as you might say, made me all the more in- dignant. If she'd left out one word particu- larly that she’d thcught fit to use, I could have pardoned her more easily; but “pom- pous” was a word I couldn't help but resent pretty warmly. Just because a man of mature age saw proper to behave with considerable dignity in an important position didn't strike me as any justification for his wife's using an unpleasant term like that. ELL, I walked on over to the club, and I hadn’'t any more than got inside the door before I saw that some meddler had been interfering with my arrangements there, too, because all of the club furniture had been put back the way it was before I'd had it changed around. I sent for the steward; he explained that a humber c¢f the lady members had done this interfering and he hadn’t liked to object for fear of giving offense. I was pretty sharp with him and asked him why he hadn't told those ladies who it was that had ordered the arrangement of the furniture. “I did, sir,” he told me. “Would you like it put back the way you had it?” “Instantly!” I told him. “Instantly!” And he said. “Yes, sir. Instantly!” and while he was attending to it and I was overseeing the job, feeling pretty put cut, that Mrs. Hapburn came up to me again, looking right peevish. “I don’t wish to be critical,” she sald, mean- ing that she did. “But it does seem to me that when you give an order, Mr. Massey, you ought to see that it's enforced. The news- ~papers were all carried back to the: billiard room the day after you had them moved and they've been there ever since.” I called the steward over to where we were standing and asked him why he’'d done such a thing. *“I didn't,” he said. “It's old Mr. Francis. He was quite upset about them be- ing moved, because he says it's quieter in the billiard room than it is in the reading room. He carried them back, himself, and said if they weren't left there he'd resign from the club.” “Then let him do it!” I said. “Let him resign!” But the steward looked worried. “I'm’ afraid it wouldn't do, sir,” he told me. “You see, Mr. Francis is one of the founders of the club. It would hardly do. Of course, though, if you give me orders to move them back to the reading room——" “Instantly!” I said. ‘“Take them back there instantly!” = So he did it, and the next m:crning old Mr. Francis moved them back to the billiard room and sent me word by the steward that if they were moved again he'd resign. The ladies came in that afternoon, too, and moved the furniture back to where they wanted it, and I had it changed again and the newspapers carried back to the reading room. Then Mr. Francis carried his darned old papers back to the billiard rcom and said more about resign- ing, and the ladies interfered with the furni- ture some more, and the thing went on this way until I began to be pretty hot upon these questions and determined to show who was who in that club, no matter how worn out it got the steward and the other employes. But just about then I began to have diffi- culties a good deal worse than this old Mr. Francis and the furniture-moving ladies. Right up to that part of the season we'd been having bright, fair weather at Mary’s Neck, day after day of it, with hardly more than two or three short little showers that didn’t keep anybody indoors to speak of. Then, one morning, a northeaster set in, terrible weather —wind howling, rain pouring as if it never intended to let up again at all—and inside that clubhouse you couldn’t hear yourself think. Not because of the elemients; my goodness, no! The tempest was noisy enough; but what went on indoors outdid it ten times over. You see, the Rocky Meadow Club is a family club; but in bright weather, when everybody’'s out in the open air all day, you'd hardly notice it. The minute the rain began to come down, though, it looked to me as if the children of practically every fomily at Mary's Neck gof bored at home and came rampaging into the club to express their animal spirits away froma their parents. I was spending the day at home reading, myself, when the cteward telephoned in a kind of quavering voice asking me if I wouldn't please corie over there; and I hadn't got insice the door before I could hear that pandemonium was going on alrcady. Any time you noticed him right clesely you could see that the steward was a sort of hoggard- looking man underncath his outward eipres- sion, as you might call it; but now he was showing his worricdness right cut in the open. “I thought it might be beiter in some ways if you were hcre, sir,” he told me. “You see, sir, every one of the children has the fecling that his own spccial fathcr and mother are pretty much the cwaers of the club, and yet as a club is property belonging to everybody, as it were, sir, all the children have the im- pression that they can do things here that they'd never in the worid be allowed to do at home.” “What have they been up to?” I asked him. “I mean besides making all this noise.” We were standing in a little hallway with the docr closed that lcd into the big lounge room of the club, and a good deal seecmed to be happening on the other side of the door. There were two pianos in that room, and each of them was having duets played on it with fists or elbows; an awful squealing kind of singing was going on, too, and a tramping like a couple of herds of ponies chasing each other around. The steward gave me a ghostlike kind of smile. “There won't be any trouble about where Mr. Francis reads his newspapers if he comes in today, sir. Little Paulie Timberlake and Brockie Griggs and some more have got the papers all torn up and the pieces rolled into balls, sir. They take these balls and stuff them into the paper drinking cups at the water-cooler, soak them with ice water, then fold the wet cups down around them and throw them at one another, sir. They've had several quite battles, sir, as it were, and the two colonial glass lamps, presented for the center table by Mrs. Weeder, are both gone, sir. They were in the line of fire, as it were, and Paulie Timberlake got one, and his friend, little Brockie Griggs, the other, sir.” “Have the lamps replaced immediately,” I told him. “Tell the club treasurer to send the bills to Mr. Timberlake and Mr. Griggs.” “I'm afraid the treasurer could hardly do that, sir; the Timberlake family and the Griggs family are both very influential, and we've found by experience that families be- come very offended when bills like that are sent to them; we've found it makes factions in the club, sir, with members not speaking to each other, and was the principal reason why the last treasurer felt he had to resign. I'll have the lamps replaced, sir, since you say 5o ”» UT just then the noise beyond the door got even Jlouder; there was a crash that sounded like an article of furniture completely giving way, and a burst of very loud yelling. “Look here!” I said. “You know the house rules of this club; why haven't you enforced them?” He gave me another ghostlike smile. “I'm afraid it would take considerable muscle, sir,” he said. “If any of us employes intruded in that 'way, the parents would very likely threaten to resign from the club unless we were vacated from our positions, sir.” I didn't wait for any more talk with him; I opened the door, and the very instant I did S0 a paper cup pecked with ice-water-soaked newspaper and feeling like a soggy snowball landed on the side of my neck. *“It was meant for me, sir,” the steward told me. “They were expecting me back, sir.” Well, I didn’t care whom it was meant for, I was pretty mad. I strode out into the middle of that room and clapped my hands togeiher. “Silence!” I said. “Silence in this room!” The noise stopped and the childreen all stood still right where they were, kind of solemn and not looking at anything, the way they do when they think maybe they're going to be in trouble about something. “You listen to me!” I said, speaking loudly and sternly. “You all know who I am. I'm the chairman of the house committee of this club, and I'm going to enforce order and respectable behavior here. If any of you wish to look at the magazines or books in the reading room you may do so, and the rest of you will have to sit down and talk quietly together or be silent. We’ll have no more of this uproar. Do you hear me?” One little boy standing in front of me with his hands behind his back said, *“Yes, sir,” in a respectful tone that I didn't altogether like. It was little Paulie Timberlake, only 9 years old, and his manner of looking at me was too speculative, as if he was wondering in what way I could be made most pleasurable to him, but he didn't say anything more just then, and none of the others said anything. Some of them walked quietly over toward the reading room, and the rest began to troop out to different parts of the building. ‘There was one cluster of boys near the door that opened into a little hall lea”ing to the billiard room, and I was just gohig to tell them that they must keep away from that room and the mew billiard table when an ice water- soaked ball of newspaper, coming from that direction, flattened itself upon the steward's forehead just behind me. The room was empty of children before he had time to wipe his face. He smiled in that wan sort of way he had and said: “It was Master Paulie, I think, sir; he seems to be quite a sure shot.” everywhere; a spindle-legged sofa wasn't mucly better than wrcckage; one of the pilanos ap- peared to have a good deal of ice water in if, and altogether the rioting seemed to have been pretty severe. As for me, boing chairman of the house committee and having acquired the sense of proprietorship that I've spoken of, I couldn’t help feeling pereonally outraged, especially by Pauliz Timberlake. I knew he'd been the ringleader and I had a pretty in- dignant suspicion that he had a good reason for holding his hands bchind him when he said: “Yes, sir,” to me, and also that the last ball of soaked newspaper had not been in- tended for the steward. “I shall ask the club secretary to send a noticc to Mr. and Mrs. Timberlake,” I said, “I'll instruct him to inform them that if they can’t regulate the conduct of their child he will be suspended from the ciub upofl the slightest repetition of th's clIcnse.” But the steward shook his d. “I'm afraid not, sir, Mr. Allstovir wouldn't send it. You see, sir, the club uscd to try, but found it couldn't single out any child in that manner, because it merely infuricted influential parents, and when it s2nt noticcs to all the parents it roused just that mu:zh mors feeling against us, sir.” I was begzinning to tell him that I didn't care how influential the Timberlakes were, I'd insist on that note beinz sont ien a terrific pounding and banging and a breie out in the dir:ciion of the billiard room, and a young man in the clud uniform came in, looking kind cf resigned. He was supposed to have cha'ge of the billiard room and never did seem to enjoy his posilion. “I knew it wouldn't be any use to try and k-cep ’'em out of there,” he told the steward and me. “I always said it wasn't going to be any use to get that ncw billiard table either. Now they've got me locked out o' there—told me somebody had lost a dol'ar on the floor of the hall—so when I cam> back they had both doors bolted on the inside. They're using the butts of the cues to see who can knock the balls hardest and make them bounce over the cushions onto the floor. It was the little Timberlake boy that thought it up.” I took those two men with me, went to the door of the billard room and demanded dat it be opened instantly. The noise going on inside was something that can't be expresscd; but I made those boys understand that it was the chairman of the house committee who wanted to come in. I knew they understood because, over everything else, there was a squealing voice anybody could recognize as Paulie Timberlake’s. “Chapmin o' the house comse mitty! Chapmin o' the house committyl” he kept squealing over and over; but that's all the attention any of ’em paid to me, and we had to go around outside and jimmy one of the windows open with an ice pick before we could get into that room. The boys scurried out, of course, as we climbed in, and by that time another riot was occuring in the reading room. I don't need to go into more details; any- body knows what a whole passel of children will do once they get into that mood and loose in a big place like the Rccky Meadow Club. The employes were pretty nearly distracted and, as for me, I began to feel that life wouldn’t be the same again until I could do something, personally, to Paulie Timberlake. I tried to call his father on the telephone, but he wasn't home and I had to talk to Mra. Timberlake instead. Of course, she said she was sorry Paulie was cutting up a little with the other boys, but you could see whati she really felt was some irritation with myself. She wanted to know if I'd called up the other boys’ mothers, and when I said I hadn't, told me pretty tartly she thought I'd better have spoken to them first, as most of the other boys were older, while her Paulie was only nine. “It seems rather strange you select ss smzll & child as that to get so excited about,” she said, OSE children kept up the turmoil im thé club house pretty much all through the three wet days of the northeaster, with few intervals of any peace and quiet, and not many adult members of-the club stayed in the place more than about a quarter of any hour. Old Mr. Francis and Mrs. Hapburn were the grown-up people who spent most of their time at the club. Mr. Francis told the steward that if I didn’t resign he would, and Mrs. Hapburn hardly let me alone a minute, she lodged s0 many complaints. Once when she was talking to me in a pretty cross voice and I was answering her in the same sort of way but more so, we started to sit down together on a sofa in the reading room. That is to say, we did sit down but got right up, and it took a minute or so to sep< arate us, because someboedy hiding behind the sofa had®reached around and put a sheet of fly paper there for us to sit on. He scurried out in such a jiffy that we couldn’'t have - sworn to which one of those child-demons it was; but I knew, because matters had reached the point of pretty near war between me and that boy, and he never let up straining his powers to keep me occupied. Even after fair weather set in again a good many of the children went on putting in their time at the club house; they'd got the habit of enjoying themselves there, and little Paulie and his particular friends continued to do their worst. They were always perfectly respettful in manner when I spoke to them face to face, as you might say, and if I asked little Paulie, for instance, “Did you do this?” of “Did you do that?” he'd look kind of grieved and answer, “Why, Mr. Massey!” as if all upset to see me so misled.” Then, a few minutes later, likely as not, if I happened to be passing near one of the stalrways or standing out on the terrace under a window, there’d be an explosion behind me,. maybe, where four or five electric light bulbs would be dropped together from upstairs, and I'd jump about three feet and hear a tiny. squealing, “Chapmin ¢’ the house Mity! Chapmin o’ the house committy!” I even had to hear something about that ad Continued on Eiphteenth Page