Page:The Brass Check (Sinclair 1919).djvu/202

 *exclusive Friday Morning Club of Los Angeles. I was duly inspected and adjudged presentable, and received an invitation to set forth my intellectual wares before the club assemblage.

Now, this was an important opportunity, as my friends pointed out. There are many such clubs in Los Angeles, and scores of others in the leisure-class towns round about. This first lecture was a test, and if I "made good," I would receive more invitations, and might be able to live quietly and do my writing. The ladies who came to hear Upton Sinclair would, of course, come expecting to be shocked. If I didn't shock them at all, my lecture would be a failure; I must be judicious, and shock them just exactly enough, so that they would come for more shocks. I am fortunate in having a wife who understands the psychology of ladies, and who undertook to groom me for this new role of leisure-class lecturer.

In the first place, there was the question of clothes. "You haven't had a new suit in four or five years," said my wife.

"How about the one I bought in England?"

"That heavy woolen suit? If you wore that on a summer day, the perspiration would stream down your face!"

"Well," I ventured, "mightn't they think it proper for a Socialist to wear old clothes? Mightn't I be pathetic"

Said M. C. S. "They don't want anybody around who is not well dressed. It's depressing. You must have a new suit."

"But—we just haven't the money to spare."

"You can get a Palm Beach suit for ten dollars."

"Isn't that rather festive? I never wore anything like it."

"Idiot! Papa wears them all the time."

Now "papa," you must understand, is—well, what "papa" does is the standard. So it was arranged that I should go into Los Angeles an hour or two earlier in the morning, and provide myself with a Palm Beach suit and pair of white shoes for two dollars. "They will be made of paper," said my wife, "but you won't have far to walk, and they'll do for other lectures."

M. C. S. does not go with me on these adventures, having not been well since the Colorado excitement. She stays at home and mends socks and writes sonnets, while I administer shocks to the leisure-class ladies. Her last injunction was a hair-cut. "The day of long-haired geniuses is past. Promise me you'll have your hair cut."

I promise, and I get the Palm Beach suit and the shoes,