Radio mirror (May-Oct 1938)

only he wouldn't say. He wanted to. He worshipped the ground she walked on, Ken says. He wanted to love her and cherish her and take care of her always, but — "It wouldn't work," he told her. "What kind of a life would I be offering you? A life in trunks and hotel rooms. A life of uncertainty, perhaps poverty. No, Mary, sweet, there is no future in ventriloquism . . . No future, at all . . ." And when Mary saw he meant it — that, for all he loved her, his stern, Scandinavian conscience would never let him do what he didn't think was right, she told him goodbye. "It is better this way," she said. She left the road and went back to Chicago. She wrote to Edgar sometimes, but he never had been very good at letter writing, and when he couldn't say to her what he wanted to; when he couldn't write down the two short words that were eating out his heart — "Come back" — he didn't write anything at all. And finally, one day, he heard she was married. That was a long time ago, but he is still alone . . . IT was the summer of 1928 that I Edgar and Charlie were offered an engagement in London. Whereupon they invented a special McCarthian English accent and set forth to seek their fortune overseas. They were a success, too, even at a distinguished private party at Grosvenor House, where guests included such celebrities as Barbara Hutton and Lady Furness. Edgar Bergen is a smart chap. He took the trouble to get the guest list for this affair and included in his conversations with Charlie many a quip at the expense of those present. London's elite, notwithstanding the alleged British lack of humor, enjoyed this fun-poking at their expense, and his performance was a triumph. After that, Edgar made several trips to Europe. Once, as entertainer on a Scandinavian cruise of a Swedish American liner, he appeared before the Crown Prince of Sweden, at a great banquet in Stockholm celebrating a Swedish World's Fair. This particular cruise took him to Iceland, to Hammerfest, that far northern port of Lapland, and to Moscow and Leningrad. In Reyjavik, Iceland, he remembers, particularly, the dark-eyed, brown-skinned children who gathered 'round the docks to see the big foreign ship and how enthralled they were when he brought out Charlie and made him talk to them in Swedish, which they understood. At Hammerfest he and some of the tourists rode out into the country to a spot where a tribe of nomadic Lapps were camped and Edgar put on a show while the wondering natives stood around marvelling, not only at Charlie, but also at the sudden loquacity of hitherto inarticulate babies and even the tribe's reindeer. There was a little trouble, though — or almost. Singling out a rather pretty (as Lapp ladies go) matron, Charlie, always the Don Juan, remarked in Swedish that he would like to kiss her. But when he attemped to suit action to word, her husband, an exceedingly large gentleman, objected, threateningly . . . And can't you just hear Charlie's hasty explanations? "Why, mister, I meant nothing personal. Kissing is a custom in our country. Yes, sir! And anyway I RADIO MIRROR MARVELOUS FOR COMPLEXIONS, TOO! You'll want to use this pure, creamywhite soap for both face and bath. Cashmere Bouquet's lather is so gentle and caressing. Yet it removes dirt and cosmetics so thoroughly, leaving your skin clearer, softer . . . more radiant and alluring! TO KEEP NOW ONLY at drug, department, ten-cent stores — BATHE WITH PERFUMED CASHMERE BOUQUET SOAP 57