Page:The New Yorker 0002, 1925-02-28.pdf/17

THE NEW YORKER Y FRIEND, Mrs. Legion, is one are all too short for her to complete her business. She of those few, as tradition numbers is always late for her appointments, rushing in a bit them, who are New Yorkers by breathless, almost embarrassingly apologetic for those birth. This gives her an apprecia- things that lack of time has forced her to leave un- ble edge on the parvenus who are done. You simply must excuse the way she looks, but Manhattanites only by migration, she didn't have a minute to get her hair waved, or, The Legions occupy an apartment goodness, she must try to crowd in a manicure some- on upper Riverside Drive, in a building called "The how, or for heaven's sake, remind her to stop at the Emdor"-an apt and amicable blending of the name baker's on her way home she didn't have a second all of the owner's wife, Emma, with that of his daughter, morning. Her life is passed in an oddly imperceptible Doris. Thus, at one crack, are any possible hard feel- process known as "getting around" to things, -get- ings averted, and a happy literary effect achieved.ting around to answer a letter, getting around to hav- “Isn't it a cute idea?” Mrs. Legion asks you, when ing her fur coat done over, getting around to having she has explained the origin of the title. "Isn't it," a talk with Junior's teacher. you answer, without an interrogation point. And And then, of course, there is all her shopping to do. there you both are, ready to start all over again. Mrs. Legion's shopping has never yet reached a stage Shortly-oh, anywhere from seven to ten minutes even approaching completion. Rarely a day passes -after she has met you, Mrs. Legion is supplying you that she must not visit the stores, if not to purchase, with all the ground floor information as to why she then to look around and get an idea or so. To look at lives on Riverside Drive, instead of Park Avenue. her, you realize instantly that it must indeed take time There is all the sun they get, and that big kitchen, and and thought and research for her to assemble her cos- the superintendent is so obliging, and just look how tumes, to get them so faithfully like those worn by all convenient the busses are. Not for worlds, she prom- other women of her circumstances. Mrs. Legion and ises you, would she dwell in any other section of the her friends dress with the uniformity of the Tiller city. Yet, oddly enough-just about enough she girls. Their hats are of the same shape and worn at may be found frequently inspecting and pricing Park the same angle, their coiffures meticulously alike, their Avenue apartments, and hopefully calling up real es- dresses follow one another closely in material and tate agents to inquire if the rents in that part of town design, their shoes are of the same last. Not until have taken a change for the better since her last she has sedulously effaced all traces of individuality inquiry. does Mrs. Legion feel that she is smart enough to ap- Although she lives as far from Park Avenue as pear in public. it is possible to do and still keep out of Jersey, Mrs. Duties aside, Mrs. Legion must have her fun, being Legion is cozily conversant of all the comings and only human. Her good times consist in meeting her goings, or what have you, of the Avenue dwellers. women friends almost daily, either at her house or at Breathlessly she pursues the society notes in the one of theirs, and having a real old-fashioned talk. daily papers; promptly on their days of publica- Sometimes this is staged over the bridge table, some- tion she buys the magazines deal- times over the Mah Jong tiles, ing with the activities of the sometimes a bit of silky and lacy socially clect. Only drop a hat, sewing. The Legion school of and she can give you anything you conversationalists deals entirely want to know in the way of dates, with personalities, nor does it fear and maiden names, and who mar- to probe deep into the intimate ried whom, and how they are get- affairs of absent acquaintances. ting along, if any. She employs Detailed stories of miserable mat- nicknames, in referring to mem- rimony and racking separation, of bers of the favored few hundred, lingering illness and agonizing with an easy casualness that gives childbirth and ancestral insanity, her remarks a truly homey flavor. of heartbreak and poverty and de- Naturally, it eats into her time sertion burble melodiously from to keep so admirably posted on the ladies' cool, smooth, expen- these matters. And Mrs. Legion sively rouged lips. is pretty hard pressed for time, The talk is interrupted by the You might think, with her hus- serving of a lavish and imagina- band carning a cheery income, tive tea, of which Mrs. Legion with Junior and Barbara safely partakes generously. She is al- in school, and a pleasant suffic- ways going to begin dieting next iency of maids—two will do it Monday morning, nicely—around the apartment, For her further diversion, there that Mrs. Legion's life would fol- are literature and the drama. Mrs. low the course made celebrated by Legion is by her own admission a the proverbial Riley; but the days great reader. She has long been a A Digitized by Google