Radio and television mirror (Nov 1939-Apr 1940)

dragged a man of his type to destruction, and Tarn could read a confirmation of it in his disorderly dress and blotched complexion, his hoarse voice and careless manners. And yet there was something likable about him, fine in him, even now. At the Willeys' anniversary dinner, where she had met him five days ago, she and George Davis had had one of the most refreshing conversations she had ever had with any man. Before, that is, he had drunk too much. He took a hurt, lofty tone now. "Listen — don't talk about me as if I were a lost soul. A little drinking and a few bets on the ponies aren't such a crime. When you say that the dogs have probably been missing me, I suppose you're trying to indicate that I've already gone to the dogs. Where'd you get' that idea? I work darned hard, when I do work. There's nothing the matter with me!" "If you don't really think there is," Tamara repeated seriously, "then that seems to me the worst of all." "I'm in very bad shape, is that it?" "Well, I don't know," Tamara said, busy with a comb. "I think you're unhappy; that's always bad. You told me yesterday you were ambitious; you want to get on; to run for the Senate. You're certainly going about it-^-" she hesitated— "in a funny way!" "Does it occur to you that that sounds at all smug?" he asked. "Yes, it does," Tamara confessed, unperturbed. "But you invited it. You asked me — I don't know how serious you were — but you asked me to marry you. I'm not going to marry anyone, as it happens. But if I were — " "It wouldn't be a man like me," he supplied. Tamara turned about to face him over the back of the dressing-table chair. "That's the worst of it!" she said. "It would. It might. You say I'm smug. God knows I haven't got much to be smug about! I'm a second-rate actress in a completely unimportant city, theatrically speaking. I'll never be anything else, and I don't want to be. I've no pride. I've no ambition. You have! You can talk with anyone; you can do anything. You could build yourself a life I couldn't touch — a home with gardens and — and distinguished people coming there, and a library — everything. I couldn't. You're a college man and an aristocrat, and I'm nothing! I was born of cheap theatrical people and I'll never be anything else. You make me tired!" Fired almost to tears by her own 24 HOBBIES IN THE WHITE HOUSE ^immM By Eleanor Roosevelt FIRST I'd like to tell you something about the President's hobbies. He has one main hobby — that is collecting anything which has to do with the American Navy. He's collected prints and models of ships and letters and books and I think that he must have almost one of the best collections in the country that deals with our own Navy. He even has caricatures. But of course, everybody knows that he collects stamps. That collection began with his Grandmother Delano, who gave her collection to my husband's mother and she gave it to her small boy. Then I suppose you might call fishing a hobby because he likes it very well. And, of course, he has one other hobby. He likes birds. We always tease him because he can't recognize his friends across the street — he's very short-sighted — but he can tell me any bird at any distance anywhere. Now, as to the rest of the family, I think, perhaps, my daughter's hobbies might be called her job and her children. James collects historical books. Elliott likes ranching and cattleraising. Franklin, Junior — well, he's going to be a lawyer so perhaps his hobby is a good one. He likes to argue. He'll argue about anything on any side of the subject. And Johnnie, he likes to ride and then, I think perhaps he's my most conscientious child about doing his job and doing it well. As for myself, well, I don't think I have many hobbies. When you live in a house with someone who has a good many, you can't afford to have many yourself. The house gets cluttered up. And so we'll say that mine is writing and meeting people. (Broadcast on tho Hobby Lobby program, sponsored by Fels Naptha Soap, now hoard on CBS Sunday afternoon J eloquence and its childish conclusion, she turned back to the mirror, and there was a long silence in the room. George, who once or twice made a movement to interrupt her, was lost in amazement now, and only sat staring. "You're the most remarkable woman I've ever met," he said presently. "Thanks," Tamara said coldly. "There's my call!" And was gone. It was some twenty minutes later that, coming back through the confusion of wings and sets, she was stopped by a stagehand holding out a man's old-fashioned gold watch on a fob. "Miss Todhunter, did you drop this?" Tarn took it, turned it about. "No, where'd you find it?" "Here on the floor." "Have you opened the back?" Tarn said. "Sometimes there's a monogram." The man with a dirty split fingernail pried open the back of the watch; there was a picture there. Tarn held it to the light. Under her make-up the color drained from her face. "I know whose it is," she said. "Yes, I'll take it. It belongs to — I know — I'll take it. Thanks, Joe." She snapped it shut, walked toward her dressing room. There was a trunk standing in the passage behind the wings, and for a dizzy moment Tamara sat down on it — breathing hard. "I don't believe it!" she said aloud. When she reached her dressing room, George Davis was still there, sitting just as she had left him, staring moodily into space. "I know damn well I'm not the sort of man you like," he said, looking up. "Have you been brooding on that?" Tamara smiled at him. He got to his feet, he and she were close together, and she looked up into his eyes with an odd look in her own. "I like you," he said. "I guess everyone does. But I know I'd never have a chance with you!" Tarn's eyes did not stir from his. "Then why don't you make yourself into the kind of man I like?" she breathed. "What are you getting at?" George's hands were like a vise on her shoulders. "Oh, wait!" She freed herself with an abrupt jerk, displayed the watch that was still in her hand. "Isn't that yours?" "Yep." He took it indifferently, disappointed by her change of mood. "My mother gave me that — I must have laid it somewhere and forgotten to (Continued on page 58) RADIO AND TELEVISION MIRROR