Page:The New Yorker 0003, 1925-03-07.pdf/16

14 the-opening audiences who don't know when to laugh Now that the sartorial season is nearly over, vernal and what's worse, when not to, will be made by me rejoicings rise in my heart over the defeat of a dinner to a Higher Court, as beginning next Monday 1 in- coat upstart which threatened for a few weeks to tend to shoot to kill at the drop of a hat. make uncomfortable a lot of men who dress decently. It was a double-breasted jacket that made its appear- ance in a dozen theatres and dinner parties during the The fact that the police are finally devoting a little last few months. Why anyone should want such a attention to New York taxicab drivers, with a view "novelty" I couldn't quite grasp. While I have not to getting rid of some of the worst of them, makes dedicated my life to keeping up the styles of the Wil- this as good a time as any to call attention to a little son-Harding period I have yet to see an improvement known fact. Taxi drivers, under the law, are re- on the conventional evening clothes of the last few quired to carry a passenger to any destination that years. God knows they don't realize the majesty of he may nama-within the city limits, that is to say. vir sapiens to any degree but how are you going to There is a marked inclination on the part of drivers, bring it out by making his clothing even more ridicu- particularly when bad weather puts cabs at a premium, lous than it is? to turn down passengers whose destinations are not just what the drivers think they ought to be. It is just as well, at these times, for the passenger to be I wonder how many of you have ever attended- or even heard of the Yorkville Theatre. It is situ- acquainted with the law, ated on Eighty-sixth Street, just east of Lexington Avenue, and through the medium of a stock company, known as the Blaney Players, presents former Broad- The return of Patricia Collinge to New York in “The Dark Angel” exhumes out of the past a story way successes and failures. The other night I attended the performance of that probably isn't true, but is just as good for all that. In the days of yore, when Miss Collinge was appear- recall little of interest about the piece, but particularly "Cheaper to Marry"-an opus by one S. Shipman. I ing with Douglas Fairbanks in such offerings as "The New Henrietta," "The Show Shop," and the vaude during the intermission. recollect the Esquimaux Pies, peddled by the ushers ville "The Regular Business Man," Fairbanks toted around with him a fully equipped electric chair, upon which it was his pleasure to induce sensitive strangers Which charmingly rural touch must have caught to sit. the attention of the Messrs. Selwyn, for only last One night in Boston, a thin lipped Brahmin brought night at the Times Square Theatre I noted the blue- his debutante daughter back stage to meet the en- jacketed usherettes selling ice-cold lemonade at twen- gaging comedian. Fairbanks asked her to be seated ty-five cents a throw. in his electric chair, and then proceeded to turn on the juice. Several hundred, or thousand, or million The business of peddling the very late (or early volts were hurled against her by her host, but the morning) editions of the newspapers around town is young woman betrayed no sign of perturbation. The rapidly becoming a nuisance of no little concern. In next day Fairbanks, somewhat worried, sought out her restaurants, in hotel lobbies, and even at the theatre, father and explained the situation. "Oh," said the proud old Bostonian, "my daughter nocturnal vendors. one is continually being pestered nowadays by these experienced the sensation, but merely ascribed it to the way a girl should feel upon being introduced to an attractive actor, and, believing that breeding counts for something, was above remarking about it.” Vau Bibbert MOSS AND FONTANA AT THE MIRADOR Digitized by Google