We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
A "VILLAIN" Laughs —
IEW CODY ... With, I should say, less to smile about. Lew has been generous with Life. He has poured ^ generous libations of heart and purse, of friendship ind love. Life has been generous with Lew. Money and ame and friendship and the fleshpots. In all, I shouldn't vonder, but the essentials. Those simple, homely things hat remain with a man for his comforting when the leshpots have lost their savor.
Lew has given Life some tough pummelings. Life has TCtaliated in kind.
The last bout, it looked as if Life would come off a smirking victor. Death so near to him. Illness. The end of a contract. The need of Beginning Again after traveling a long. and arduous road. From the days when matinee girls in White Plains hugged a debonair photograph to their palpitant bosoms and murmured "Lew . . ." to the days of Aileen Pringle-Lew Cody comedies, when the daughters of those same palpitant bosoms y| likewise murmured "Lew . . . .'
Lew has busted back at Life and, at this writing the odds arc even, with Lew a bit to the fore.
Laughter That Hurts
LEW sits in his patio in his own backyard. He ^ wears a silk kimono and an African sun helmet.
The patio is carpeted with beach sand. Back of it there is a pool. Over the pool and to the rear is a sign. It reads, "Ye Comfort Station."
On either side of Lew is draped a beauteous damsel or so. Aged nineteen. He calls them "old hags." And laughs. The laughter is impersonal enough to hurt.
Lew is going through all tricks that have lost their savor. He is amused. He is no longer bemused.
Probably James is the only human being who means very much to Lew at the present. The one who is close and familiar and necessary. James is the negro man Lew has had for years. And James refers to Lew and himself as "We." He says, "We are going to have our pictures made . . . We have been sick, but we're better now . . . We don't want a day off . . . We go down to Central Avenue and gets into trouble. That is no place for us. Here is where we belong."
The only time James uses the first person singular is when he refers to "My car."
The Unwelcome Guest
IF AN envious guest suggests to James that there might be more money and more leisure elsewhere, James says, "We will have to talk that over, suh," thus panicking the disloyal guest, who incidentally, is a guest in one house no longer.
Lew commands loyalty. Or he doesn't command it. He just plain gets it. Deserved or not, there it is, unwavering, long-lived and wholly unequivocal.
"We" play tricks. Lew and James sit in the sun and spin tricks to trap the unwary guest.
The radio plays. There is a pause for a station announcement. The announcer says, "If anyone knows the whereabouts of Gladys Hall, last seen driving toward Beverly Hills, will they kindly report to headquarters.'"
This is usually good for a slight fainting fit or a
{Continued on page joo) —
And Lew CodyLaughs Till It Hurts
By GLADYS HALL
57