Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

One night my father came home with a queer light in his eyes. He said nothing during dinner, except to note, as he passed me the salt, that salt is an essential to all grain-consuming and herbivorous animals but that on a meat-diet man can do without it. “There have been bitter tribal wars,” he said, “between the tribes of the Soudan for possession of the salt deposits between Fezzan and Murzuk.”

“Arthur,” said my mother, quietly, “remember the boys are present.”

“It is time they knew,” was his reply.

At last my mother, sensing that something was troubling him, said:

“Arthur, are you holding something back from me?”

He laid down his knife and fork and looked at her.

“I have just heard,” he said, “that the molecule is no longer the indivisible unit that it was supposed to be.”

My mother bit her lip.

“You tell me this,” she said, “after all these years!”

“I have just learned it myself,” replied my father. “The National Molecule Society found it out themselves only last month. The new unit is to be called the ‘atom.’”

“A fine time to tell me!” said my mother, her eyes blazing. “You have known it for a month.”

“I wasn’t sure until just now,” said my father. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

My mother took my brother and me by the hand. “Come, boys,” she said, “we are going away.”

Two days later the three of us left for the Continent. We never saw my father again.

§7

This set me to thinking about atoms. I don’t think that I have it straight even now. And then, just as I was getting accustomed to the idea that molecules _could_ be divided into atoms, along comes somebody a few years ago and says that you can divide atoms into electrons. And, although I was about seventy-five at the time, I went out into the park and had a good cry.

I mean, what is an old fellow going to do? No sooner does he get something all thought out than something happens to make him begin all over again. I get awfully sore sometimes.

§8

Then there is this question of putting studs in a dress-shirt. Here is the problem as I see it:

If you put the studs in _before_ you put the shirt on, you muss your hair putting it on over your head. If you wait until you have the shirt on before putting in the studs, you have to put your hand up under the front of the shirt and punch them through with the other. This musses the shirt bosom nine times out of ten. Eight times out of ten, perhaps.

All right. Suppose you put the studs in first and muss your hair. Then you have to brush it again. That is not so hard to do, except that if you put tonic on your hair before you brush it, as I do, you are quite likely to spatter drops down the bosom. And there you are, with a good big blister right where it shows--and it’s 8 o’clock already.

Now here _is_ a problem. I have spent hours trying to figure some way to getting around it and am nowhere near the solution. I think I will go to the Riviera where it is quiet and just think and think and think.

§9

I am sitting at my window in the _Villa a Vendre_ at Cagnes. If it were not for the Maritime Alps I could see Constantinople. How do you suppose the Alps got there, anyway? Some giant cataclysm of Nature I suppose. I guess it is too late to do anything about it now.

Irma is down in the garden gathering snails for dinner. Irma is cross at me because this morning, when she suggested running up to Paris for the shooting, I told her that the ancient name of Paris was Lutitia.

I get to thinking about women sometimes. From eight in the evening on. They are funny. Female characteristics differ so from male characteristics. This was true even in the Pleistocene Age, so they tell me.

§10

Next Wednesday I am going back to thinking about God. I didn’t anywhere near finish thinking about God the last time. The man came for the trunks and I had to go with him to the station.

It is quite a problem. I don’t think there is any doubt about there being some Motive Power which governs the World. But I can’t seem to get much beyond that. Maybe I’ll begin again on that Monday. Monday is a good day to begin thinking. Your laundry is just back and everything is sort of pristine and new. I hope that, by beginning Monday, I can get everything cleaned up by Friday, for Friday I am going over to Monte Carlo.

§11

It is six years now since I began writing this book. I am almost ninety-seven. According to the statistics of the Royal Statistical Society I can’t expect much longer in which to think things over.

The big thing that is worrying me now is about putting sugar on my oatmeal. I find that if I put the sugar on first and then the cream, the sugar all disappears, and I like to see it, nice and white, there on the cereal. But if I put the cream on first and _then_ the sugar, it doesn’t taste so good. I asked Irma about this the other day and she told me to shut up and go back to bed.

§12

After thinking the whole thing over, I have come to the conclusion that I don’t want to write a book at all. When a man is ninety-seven it is high time he was doing something else with his time besides writing books. I guess I’ll go out and roll down hill.

THE _LIFE_ POLAR EXPEDITION

1

_At the Hop-off of_ LIFE’S _Polar Expedition, Scarsdale, N. Y. (Second Lap)_--Here we are, much to our surprise, all set for the second big lap on our expedition to the North Pole by bicycle, begun last spring. Those of you with a scientific turn of mind who have followed us thus far will remember that we were held up in my home in Scarsdale by a lost nut and that, by the time we were ready to start on again, news had come of the so-called successful completion of the Byrd and Amundsen expeditions.

The positive assurance that we had been beaten in the race to the Pole, with our goal practically within pedaling distance, as you might say, was naturally very depressing. Lieutenant-Commander Connelly took the thing particularly to heart, as he had _so_ wanted us to be first. We found him that afternoon in the Bronx River Parkway, kicking a tree much bigger than himself and half-sobbing, half-laughing: “Darn-darn-double-darn!” and “You old _tree_, you!”

I myself was quite disheartened but tried not to show it to the brave boys who had come so far and had shown such splendid spirit. So I proposed that we go back to the house and sing some songs. I wish that you might have seen the will with which the rest of the crew took up my suggestion, and have heard the room ring with the sounds of “Upidee” and “Solomon Levi” when we finally got down to it. Both Lieutenant-Commander Connelly and Ensign Thermaline sang tenor.

It was Ensign Thermaline who finally spoke the words which gave us new courage to continue on our expedition in spite of the self-styled winners, Byrd and Amundsen.

“Why should we stop,” he asked, toppling off the piano bench, “just because some wise-cracking aviators have flown over the Pole? Our aim was not to _fly_. It was to bicycle. That popular interest in polar expeditions has died down should mean nothing to us. That the New York _Times_ will not take any more expedition articles until it uses up those it has on hand means nothing to us. We can get to the Pole and back before the George Palmer Putnam series has even been got together in book form. We can still be the first to bicycle across the Pole--and, by the Eternal, we will!”

At this we were on our feet and cheering. Rosa brought in a plate of hermits and we sat over these until far into the night making plans for our second dash to the Pole.

It was decided that, since the Putnam expedition on the _Morrissey_ was being written up by Mr. Putnam’s little boy David, we should take my little boy Bobby along as official yeoman and that all reports should be written by him. He is seven, and no one, not even his teacher, can read his writing; so he seemed practically ideal.

We also decided that we ought to have names for our bicycles (like the Putnam’s _Morrissey_), and Lieutenant-Commander Connelly immediately chose “The O’Toole” for his, and Ensign Thermaline “Mavourneen” for his. Mine was to be “The Banshee.”

The next thing to do was to buy a small bicycle for Bobby, and, believe it or not, it took until just this week to find one small enough. However, Scarsdale was very pleasant during the summer and we all were very happy and brave, and here we are ready to start tomorrow, “rain or shine,” as Lieutenant-Commander Connelly expressed it, laughing to hide his tears.

2

_Special North Pole Correspondence from Bobby Benchley, Juvenile Member of_ LIFE’S _Bicycle Expedition. En route to Pole._

North White Plains, N. Y.--When we left Scarsdale on the second dash to the Pole my father told me that he would write the account of our trip and that I should sign my name to it, as every expedition has to have a little boy along who writes a book about it later.

“You write it and I sign it?” I asked him.

“That’s right, Bobby,” he said. “Daddy writes it and Bobby signs it and Bobby gets all the publicity.”

“Publicity me eye,” was my answer. “If I sign it, I write it. I’ll take no responsibility for your drivel. I know your stuff and I prefer to write my own, _if_ you don’t mind. The rest of the school would kid the pants off me if one of your books came out with my name signed to it.”

This angered my father and he made as if to hit me, but I ducked and ran into the house.

“All right for you, you big bully!” I yelled out at him. “Just for that I won’t _go_ on your old expedition.”

This sobered him up and he agreed to let me write my own stuff and sign it and take ten per cent. of the royalties. If the book sells as it ought to, with any kind of pushing at all from the publishers, I ought to clean up enough to marry Ruthie Henshel in the spring.

So here we are, as far as North White Plains, and very dull it has been up till now, too. We left Scarsdale at ten o’clock Wednesday morning, I on my new Demon with special coaster-brake attachment and a swell cap with a big visor on it to keep the Artic sun out of my eyes. It is my private opinion that all the Artic sun we see on this trip you could _put_ in my right eye and I’d never notice it.

(_Proofreading note by Benchley, Sr._--I _told_ Bobby he ought to let
me write out a rough draft for him first. You see what he has done
with “Arctic.” However, if he is going to be just stubborn about the
thing--)

The trouble with the expedition so far is that my father and Lieut.-Commander Connelly get winded so soon. They can’t pump up even a little hill without having to get off at the top and rest. We’re lucky to be at North White Plains, let alone the North Pole. I began by going on ahead as fast as I could, but this just made them sore and I lost them going through Hartsdale and had to sit down by the roadside and wait for them to come up. They both got pretty fat during the summer hanging around at the base in Scarsdale, and my father especially has got to look out or he’ll look something awful in another year. I told him so, too, and he told me to shut up or he’d send me away to military school.

Well, anyway, what with the old folks puffing along behind and Ensign Thermaline having to stop off in White Plains to see an old girl of his, it has taken us just four days to get this far.

Coming through White Plains, my father tried to tell me about the battle that was fought there during the Revolutionary War.

“What battle was that?” I asked.

“The Battle of White Plains, of course,” he said. “What did you think it was, the Battle of Princeton, N. J.?”

“Princeton beat Harvard, didn’t they?” I came back at him.

At this he made a lunge for me, and fell off his bicycle, which got me to laughing so hard I had to stop, too.

“And who won the Battle of White Plains, Father dear?” I asked him, trying to change the subject.

“The Americans did, of course,” he said, brushing himself off.

“Yeah?” I said. “So the Americans won, did they? Well, that shows what _you_ know about it. The British won. We had it in school only last week.”

“What school?” asked my father, very sore now.

“Not Harvard, anyway,” I said. “Yale beat Harvard, too.”

“Yeah?” he said, getting redder and redder. “Yale beat Harvard by playing twelve men against Harvard’s eleven.... And if you aren’t a better boy, Daddy’s going to send you right back to Scarsdale on the 4:10 from White Plains.”

“The 4:10 doesn’t stop at Scarsdale,” I said. “It’s an express to 125th St.”

“Let’s be getting on,” interrupted Lieut.-Commander Connelly. “This is no way to get to the North Pole--arguing about Harvard and Yale.”

So we all got on our wheels again and pushed ahead, but I think I’ll drop off at Mt. Kisco and see the Barry kids. My time is worth _something_.

HOW TO START A SUPPER CLUB

You think that the housing problem in New York is pretty critical, don’t you? Well, that just shows how much you know about it. The problem isn’t how to take care of all the people who live in New York; it’s how to take care of all the people who dance there. Night clubs are springing up like mushrooms (not exactly like mushrooms but near enough) and still there is a shortage. A lot of people have to go home every night without dancing. And you know what that leads to.

A man can’t turn his back on a block between Fiftieth and Fifty-ninth Streets without three new supper clubs appearing before he looks back again. I left my house in Fifty-fifth Street one Wednesday morning (it was the Wednesday morning I left my house in Fifty-fifth Street) and after a hard day at the office returned Friday night to find that four stables on our block (I am a horse writing this: “Black Beauty”) had been transformed into “La Vache Noire,” “Sally Sobel’s Cellar,” “The Old Oaken Bucket,” and “Club O’Hara.” It has got so that you can’t leave your ice box out on the back porch without someone coming along and turning it into a night club.

The process of transforming a stable or an ice box or a fair-sized umbrella closet into a supper club is pretty simple, once you get the hang of it.

First comes the coat room. This has to be the first feature on the way in, in order to be the last one on the way out, so that the coat room girl can get that last fifty-cent piece that the patron has been holding out for taxi fare. You wouldn’t believe the number of cheap skates that try to sneak out with fifty cents or a dollar hidden away in their clothes. It kind of makes you lose your faith in human nature.

From the coat room you arrange a hidden step so that the guest stumbles down into what used to be the place where they kept the mops and brooms and into the arms of the head waiter. This gives the head waiter the chance to accuse the patron of being drunk and refuse him admission.

The choice of a head waiter is very important. Go down to the wharves when a fruit steamer is docking and pick out a stevedore who is less polite than his fellows. Take him uptown and teach him how to put studs into a dress shirt and station him at the entrance to your club. Tell him that he has just been unanimously chosen governor of the State of New York and that it is up to him to maintain the prestige of the office. Also tell him that any patron is a bum until he proves himself otherwise. Show him what you mean by proof and then put it back into the cash drawer.

The interior of your club need cause you no worry--or expense. Hang some old awnings from the ceiling--good and low so as to shut off the air--and paint the walls red and yellow, with perhaps a figure or two in Russian costume, if you can draw--or even if you can’t. In the center of the room build a dance floor just big enough for a medium-sized man to lie down on and roll over three times. Not that any medium-sized man is going to do it, but those are the standard measurements for night club dance floors. Fill the rest of the room with small tables which wabble, erect a platform for your jazz band, and you are set.

Now comes your big problem--the entertainment. There was a time when the patrons were satisfied to mill around on the dance floor and bump each other’s hips. Then some foolish proprietor started in giving them a little show in between dances and they got spoiled. Now they all want a show for their money. This injustice to proprietors is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the patrons don’t care what kind of show it is, so long as they don’t have to dance.

There has to be some sort of master of ceremonies, and the proprietor can save a salary right there by doing this himself. All that he has to do is wear a dinner coat and act as if he believes that he has a good line.

“Ladies and gentlemen--and Gentiles. I have the very great honor to present to you tonight two of America’s foremost ballroom dancers, two very charming and very talented young people who are filling an engagement at this club before beginning in the new Ziegfeld ‘Follies.’ They come fresh from a very successful season on the Riviera and I am sure that you will find them very, very delightful. So’s your old man!... Come on, now, give these charming young people a good hand!... [_Lead the applause._] Delacroix and Feeney, ladies and gentlemen!”

For Delacroix and Feeney it will be necessary to procure a young man and a young woman named Hyman and Gatz, respectively, who can waltz holding each other at arm’s length. The young man must look at the young lady while they are waltzing and smile as if he really liked her, and the young lady must smile modestly back at him, just as if she were not thinking: “You big bum, I hope you trip and fall and break your shirt front.” At the end of the waltz she curtsies so low that she has a good chance of not getting up again--which would be small loss. The master of ceremonies should then lead the applause again, what there is.

The entertainment over, you can turn the patrons loose again, with instructions to the orchestra to play so long that the dancers will fall exhausted by their tables and have to order refreshments. For food a forty-cent chop suey can be served for two dollars and a half and a ten-cent lemonade for a dollar. This will help you to clear expenses and maybe make a little profit.

Now in the matter of dispensing alcoholic drinks a great deal of caution must be used. It is, as many of you know, against the law to sell liquor, a fact which complicates its sale and makes for considerable inconvenience. The authorities are more and more on the alert and consequently the risk of getting caught remains about the same. A night club proprietor cannot be too careful to whom he sells strong drinks. For instance, if a man in the uniform of chief of police, with gold braid and a sword, comes in with a friend who has a flag in his hand on which is written “U. S. Revenue Service,” no drinks should be served to that table until it has been definitely ascertained that the men are “all right.” As for regular patrons, always wait until they ask for liquor before serving it, as a lot of people have their own with them and don’t like to be bothered by representatives of the house standing at their elbows every minute trying to get them to buy. The chief thing to find out about a man before you sell him any illicit beverage is whether or not he has got $12. Once this is made sure, the thing is not so foolhardy.

With these few suggestions to those of you who might be in a position to start a night club, it is to be hoped that more and more citizens will lend a hand to help solve New York’s big problem.

THE NEW VILLAINY

Although the new fall season in the drama is only just under way, it is not too early to view with alarm. Some Viewers-with-Alarm begin as early as September to view, but that doesn’t give you much time to collect data. Perhaps all that you can get is a _datum_, but a good, healthy datum is enough to base a sizable alarm-view on, and, as you go along, you can make up a datum or two, so that you can refer to the whole as data.

This month we are chiefly worried about the status (or stata) of what used to be known as “the old-time religion.” That is, its status in the world of drama. If the new season keeps on as the past two seasons have gone, being under suspicion of harboring religious thoughts will place one in the psychopathic class. For two years now, eight out of ten villains have been preachers and any layman with excessive religious tendencies has turned out to be just a repressed old sex-addict.

There was a time when the entrance of the preachers on the stage was the signal for a sigh of relief to go up, for you knew that so long as he stuck around, things were pretty sure to go as they should. The lowest he ever reached in the dramatic scale was when he was occasionally used for comedy purposes. Once in a while there was a comic bishop, but that was only natural. And any member of the cast who showed signs of quoting the Scriptures, or going to church, was pretty certain to be one of those whom you could trust to help foil the adventuress in the last act.

Then along about the time that “Rain” settled down for a run, we began to find preachers sneaking into plays whose minds were not on their work in the vineyard. Under the guise of evangelism they started in to cut up. At first we thought: “Oh, well, this is just an exception. Our Dr. Murnie at home wouldn’t do anything like this.” But gradually, after we had seen dozens and dozens of preachers come on in the first act, make a few sanctimonious remarks, and then sprout little horns and a goat’s tail, we began to look askance at even Dr. Murnie of the Second Congregational Church.

Then the lay members of the congregation came in for analysis. The hand of Freud reached out and touched the brethren and sistren and we learned that whenever anyone is excessively religious, it is a sign that they are suffering from an inhibition which is likely some day to break loose and leave Broadway strewn with bits of broken bottles and confetti. The more religious they are, the more they crave a good, rip-snorting week-end at Atlantic City, registering under the wrong name. It is all very confusing.

In the old days, the minute a man came on with a mustache like Adolphe Menjou’s and wearing a pair of riding boots with a crop to slap them with, you could be pretty sure that he was up to no good. If you were highly strung you whispered out loud to the heroine not to go to the city with him as he had no more intention of marrying her than--well, than anything at all, and you know how little that is.

Today, whenever a character in clerical cloth makes his entrance, the orchestra starts picking at the violin strings in the old _pizzicato_ villain-entrance music, the young-lady members of the cast pick their exits and the audience settles back in preparation for the dirty work.

Pretty soon we may have a scene like this:

SCENE.--_Living room of the DeViblis home. Father, mother, and
daughter are seated around the table, splicing rope._

DAUGHTER: Pa, there’s somethin’ I been a-wantin’ to ask you fer a long time.

MOTHER: For heaven’s sake, daughter, talk straight. This isn’t a New England farm play we’re in. You know how to talk better than that.

DAUGHTER: Well, anyway, I want to marry Arthur Arthritis.

FATHER: What does he do for a living?

DAUGHTER: Well, he’s changing his job in a few months.

FATHER: What does he do now?

DAUGHTER: Why--er--well, I’ll tell you; just now he’s a preacher, but he’s going to change--

MOTHER: A preacher! Oh, my!

FATHER: A minister of the gospel? Where did you meet him? I thought I told you not to run around with them religious folks. They are every one of them inhibited.

DAUGHTER: Oh, that’s just because you don’t know them, dad. They’re just as decent as you or I when you get to know them. And Arthur isn’t _really_ a preacher. He’s just filling-in.

FATHER: Just filling-in, eh? I suppose you know what that leads to? Next he’ll be having a little parish of his own, then he’ll get a call to a big city, or perhaps he’ll even sink so low as to be a missionary. Them preachers are all missionaries at heart, and you know what missionaries are. No, sir, no daughter of mine gets mixed up in that crowd.

DAUGHTER: Well, he’s coming here in a few minutes to hear your answer. There he is now!

(_Enter the Rev. Heemerson._)

FATHER: Well, what do you want here?

THE REV. H.: Why, Brother--

FATHER: Don’t you “brother” me.

THE REV. H.: I love your daughter and I want to marry her.

FATHER: You want to _marry_ her, eh? When you get to New York, I suppose?

THE REV. H.: Why, I thought--

FATHER (_stepping to the telephone_): Oh, you thought, did you? (_To central_): Give me police headquarters ... hello, police headquarters? Well, there’s a preacher in my house. Send an officer up right away!

THE REV. H. (_leaving_): I’m sorry, sir, that you feel this way, so I think I’ll be saying “good-by.”

FATHER: Good-by, and go back to your religious crowd and their loose ways and never darken my door again.

(_Curtain with daughter crying, and father and mother getting down
the family volume of Freud to read by the lamplight._)

* * * * *

All this is perhaps the result of years and years of bullyragging the stage and stage folk by preachers and religious zealots. The stage folk have found a comeback and are using it. It will be nip and tuck for a while, with the stage folk slightly in the lead until it is discovered that all stage folk are not really saints and all religious zealots not really satyrs and nymphs. Then things will settle down again. In the meantime, let’s have some more of that chicken potpie, please.

TIME-OFF FROM THE SHOW

_New York Sights Which the Visitor Should Not Miss_

You can’t expect the visitor to New York during the automobile show to stand in front of automobiles all day and all night. He’s got to look at something else _once_ in a while, just so that he can see the automobiles better when he goes back to look at them. That’s only common sense.

Now comes the big question--what to look at? New York is a big city now, and unless you are careful you will look at the wrong things and before you know it, it will be time to go back and you will have seen nothing. Or practically nothing. Or next to nothing.

Let us say (Oh, go on! Be a good sport! _Let_ us), let us say that you are to be in New York four days and six nights. Here is a schedule which you may follow or not, but, at any rate, look it over. It suggests something for you to do every evening and, in case you have any spare time during the day, there are one or two extra hints.

MONDAY EVENING

Of course, the very first night that you have free you will want to see the new Reinach collection of tapestries at the Metropolitan Art Museum. This collection is one of the most valuable in the world, and one of the hardest to hide under. The tapestries hang some four feet off the ground, so the minute you try to hide under one of them you are quite exposed up to at least your chest, maybe oftener than that.

Most of the tapestries in the exhibit are French, and consequently are kept in a little room off the main hall, to which admission is obtained only by conference with the curator. Of the others, the most interesting is that which depicts the hunting of a stag in the Middle Ages. In the lower left-hand corner you see the huntsmen starting out after the stag, carrying hauberks and falcons. As you work up through the tapestry, from left to right, it gets even less interesting, until, by the time they have caught the stag in the upper right-hand corner, you aren’t looking at it at all and have passed on to the next tapestry which shows huntsmen of the Middle Ages chasing a fox.

It has just occurred to us that the Art Museum is not open evenings; so this plan for Monday night is out. You will have to find something else to do. There is a good place on West Fifty-sixth Street.

TUESDAY EVENING

The Public Library, at Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, is open until 11 o’clock. You will surely want to see this. Enter by the side door on the Forty-second Street side, as there are two of the nastiest lions you ever saw guarding the front entrance. Ring the little bell by the side entrance and when the man comes ask for Joe Delaney. He will ask who wants to see him and you say that Bob Benchley sent you. He will then let you in to the downstairs lobby, where there is an elevator to take you up to the reading room. This elevator is not running; so you will have to walk up three flights of marble stairs, and a pretty tough pull it is, too.

You will find the reading room brilliantly lighted and practically full of books. Go straight to the case marked “Biography M-TO.” Beginning at the top shelf, left-hand corner, pull all the books out, from left to right, and throw them in a pile on the floor. Pretty soon you will have quite a big pile and can begin on the case marked “History-Renaissance.” This will make another big pile. By this time, you will have several attendants helping you and you can work faster. If you stick to it until 11 o’clock, you will be able to pull out all the books on that side of the room and scuffle through them. Then you can go back to your hotel, tired but happy.

WEDNESDAY EVENING

By this time, you will be perhaps ready to see a little of the so-called “night life” of the metropolis. There is no better place to do this than at the Woman’s Exchange, on Madison Avenue between Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Streets. The specialty here is breads and cakes, and if you can get a table by the window you can eat your fill while watching the Madison Avenue trolley cars go thundering by. It would be well to wear your old clothes to this place, as along about 9 o’clock in the evening things begin to rough up quite a bit, and, by the time the fresh batch of cup cakes is ready at 10, the joint is a regular bedlam. It was here that Harry Thaw had been dining the night he shot Stanford White.

THURSDAY EVENING

We have saved until your last night in New York the big thrill of the week--riding on the Shetland ponies in Central Park. They usually put the ponies to bed at sundown, but by slipping the pony-man a dollar bill you can get him to leave as many of the little fellows out as you may require.

Get to the park at about 8 p. m., wearing red coat and riding breeches. You might as well take along a good, big whip, too, in case your pony gets fresh. Carrying children about all day as they do, they are quite apt to think that they can do anything they like, and you must be ready to show them that they can’t. They will respect you all the more after a couple of good belts.

Once aboard the ponies, the best course is around the reservoir. Five times around at a brisk canter makes a nice ride. In case your feet drag on the ground (the ponies are pretty small) you can tuck them in under the saddle or else let them drag. For steeplechase racing it will be better to let them drag, as it makes it harder for the little animals to get over the hurdles. If you have lots of money to spend on the thing, you can give a hunt breakfast at the Central Park Casino.

ALTERNATE ENTERTAINMENT

Although you may have seen something of the automobile at the show, you will get a better idea of what the automobile really means to our civilization by coming with me to a little private exhibition which I will be glad to stage any afternoon between the hours of 4 and 6:30. I wish that every automobile manufacturer and salesman could join in, because I want them to see just what it is that they have done. If I had my way, I would get them all reservations on a train leaving the Pennsylvania station at 5:30 p. m. Then, at 4:45, I would start them from Forty-fourth Street in taxicabs or private cars and say: “Now, you big automobile men, you have got forty-five minutes to go half a mile in. And there isn’t another train until tomorrow morning.”

I would follow behind on foot, and when they were held up by the jam of automobiles at Forty-second Street for five minutes, I would jeer. When they were held up at Fortieth Street, I would hoot. During their five-minute holdup at Thirty-ninth Street, I would taunt them with: “What price automobiles, now?” and while they were chafing at the tieup at Thirty-eighth Street, I would call out: “Get a horse!” I would make them so sore at the automobile as an institution that they would swear never to make another.

THE _LIFE_ POLAR EXPEDITION

_Continuation of the log of Bobby Benchley, Juvenile Yoeman on_ LIFE’S _North Pole Expedition._

MT. KISCO, N. Y.--_En route to North Pole by bicycle._

Things have been going from bad to worse in this expedition and I doubt very much if I can stick it out any longer. My father has been unbearable ever since we left North White Plains, harping continually on the fact that I am only seven years old and small for my age at that. If parents only knew it, it is that sort of talk which makes for radicalism and debauchery in the younger generation.

Then he began insisting that I mention the names of firms which have contributed stuff for our expedition. When I say that we stopped at the roadside for lunch I must add “which was so kindly contributed by the Alexander Hamilton Peanut Butter Sandwich Co., of 1145 North Rumsey Street, Chicago.” Or if I mention tipping our hats to a lady, acknowledgment must be given to the “Bon Ton Arctic Hat Co., who were generous enough to supply the expedition with hats.”

Now this is a lot of hooey and I told my father so and refused point-blank to lend myself to any such cheap advertising gag as that. It was then that he brought up the point that I was only seven and that I should busy myself with only those thoughts which a seven-year-old boy should have. And he added, furthermore, that I could keep a civil tongue in my head. So I have determined to stop off here at Mt. Kisco and spend a week or so with the Barry kids and then go on back home to Scarsdale. That expedition is never going to get to the North Pole anyway. My father and Lieut.-Commander Connelly are too fat--especially my father. You ought to see him.

_Insert in log made by Benchley, Sr._

Bobby has proved quite a disappointment to us so far, and I am not sure that I would be sorry to see him leave the expedition here. Our idea in having him along was to give the boy a little publicity and to have him write a book which could be sold to the juvenile trade around Christmas time, but a little boy who behaves as badly as he does doesn’t deserve any publicity and he can’t write for a darn anyway.

Furthermore, I am _not_ getting fat. I always put on a little weight in the winter, because I can’t play tennis, but every one says that it is becoming to me. I weigh only 160 when I am ready for my cold-bath (which I very seldom am, _these_ mornings) and for a man of my height, that is not a pound too much. As a matter of fact, Bobby is probably a little sore because he is so small for his age. You’d never think he was seven. He looks more like a child of three. He must get that from his mother’s side of the family, because all the Benchleys have shot right up to a good height before they were seven. His older brother Nat is a fine tall boy. And a great deal smarter in school than Bobby.

Then, too, another sign that I am not too fat is that people who haven’t seen me for several years all remark “How well you look!” You don’t say that to a man who is _too_ fat, do you?

But there is no reason for having our expedition torn with dissension just because a little boy has no respect for his father. I suggested sending him back to Scarsdale, but Lieut.-Commander Connelly said why not give him another chance, he is so cute. It is all very well for an outsider to call a child cute, but when a man has reached my age he is entitled to a little respect from his own children--it seems to me.

(_Resumption of the log by Bobby._)

It is very nice here in Mt. Kisco at the Barrys’ and I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole expedition stayed here until the snow gets out of the roads. Mr. Barry has some very good stuff that he brought from France last year and I heard my father say last night that he wouldn’t care if he _never_ saw the North Pole or anything else for that matter. He and Lieut.-Commander Connelly think they are pretty good at two-part singing and as Lieut.-Commander Connelly said, “It looks as if it were going to be a fine winter for two-part singing, especially ‘Sleep, Kentucky Babe.’” Mr. Barry hasn’t said anything yet except that he has to take his family to Cannes early in March. All he expected us to do was stop here overnight, and while he is very nice about it, I guess he knows what he is in for, all right, all right.

On the way up from North White Plains I saw a snow-bird, but didn’t say anything about it as I knew it would mean taking out pencils and making notes for the Museum. A hot lot of good the Museum is going to get out of _this_ expedition.

SPYING ON THE VEHICULAR TUNNEL

Before the formal opening of the Holland Vehicular Tunnel under the Hudson River, it behooves New Yorkers to study up a little on the subject and see why it is that 46,000 vehicles are going to _want_ to go to Jersey City every day.

In order to present this problem fairly to the readers of this paper, the writer of this article (you must guess) took a tour of inspection of the tube, which is now completed with the exception of installing a ventilation system and hanging the curtains. Curtains make such a difference that it will probably be simply another tunnel when they are up.

Your investigator was not asked by the authorities to make this tour of inspection, but somebody from the New York _Times_ went through the thing and wrote a story about it; so there didn’t seem to be any good reason why a reporter from _The New Yorker_ shouldn’t. Not having the permission of the tunnel authorities, he went alone into this vast-two-mile submarine passageway, with the result that he got lost and is still in there. This story is being sent out to _The New Yorker_ by a code of tappings executed on the roof of the giant shell by the lost investigator. As soon as he finishes sending in copy (which will be relayed to the publication offices by a special tugboat and automobile service) the reporter will turn his energies again to the problem of getting out of the tube. After all, there are only two ways possible in which to go; so it ought not to be very difficult. The big problem comes in trying to decide which way to take.

Now that we are well acquainted it might be less formal if I use the first person. You probably knew that it was I all along anyway. These little editorial subterfuges are rather futile.

But to get back to the tunnel--or rather to get _out_ of the tunnel. Sneaking in by the entrance at Canal Street, Manhattan, I made my way through the tiled passageway for what must have been a mile before I realized that, really, when you have seen the first hundred feet of a vehicular tunnel you have seen all 9250. I had got the idea by then. The next problem was whether to go on ahead to the Jersey City exit or turn and go back to Canal Street. Not knowing how far I had come, I couldn’t figure out which way would be the shorter. Then, in turning around several times to see if I could make out any light at either end, I forgot which was the way to New York and which the way to Jersey City. This was quite terrifying and I began to cry softly. I made frantic little starts, first in one direction and then in the other, and finally sat down on the ground and sobbed myself to sleep.

When I awoke, it was high time that my story was in; so I attracted the attention of a passing tug by tapping on the roof of the tube and indicated that I had a story to file for _The New Yorker_. The rest is history.

Well, anyway.

The Holland Vehicular Tunnel is a dandy tunnel, all right, all right. The roadways are 20 feet wide and there is 13 feet, 6 inches of headroom. The extra six inches is for wedding parties in which there are men in silk hats. It is estimated that in one year 15,000,000 vehicles will pass through the tube. Wouldn’t you like to have a dollar for every vehicle! A dollar and a _half_ would be even better. _Boy!_ What I couldn’t do with $22,500,000!

I was pleased to note that there are to be telephone stations along the route. This will make it possible to call up and say:

“Look here! I’m held up in the vehicular tunnel and probably can’t get anything before the 8:15. Don’t wait dinner. I’ll eat in Jersey City.”

This question of being held up in the tunnel is one which must present itself to everyone who gives the matter any thought at all. There aren’t many things certain in this life, but there is one event I can predict without even adding “maybe.” On my first trip through the vehicular tunnel at the wheel of my high-powered car, just as I get halfway between New York and New Jersey, with a line of impatient Sunday automobilists behind me, I am going to run out of gas. I’ll bet that the engineers in charge have never once thought of this contingency, and when it arises, it is going to make their tunnel look pretty silly. It was a silly idea anyway, in the first place.

COMPILING AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY

_Suggestions as to How Theodore Dreiser Might Write His Next Human Document and Save Five Years’ Work_