S. O. S.—R. S. V. P.

Vanity Fair's Prize Department of Deportment [The First Award of Prizes]

Charles Macomb Flandrau

IS it the inevitable reaction from having, for so many months, tried to solve the problems of the war that has suddenly turned such an overwhelming number of intelligent Americans to a solution of the less tragic problems in Vanity Fair.

To the war many things have been rightly and wrongly attributed, so far, none of them particularly pleasant or gratifying, and it is therefore odd to find oneself speculating on the war's responsibility for the delightful, the amazing success, with which the first two numbers of this department have been received.

From Alaska to Panama (and of course "from Maine to California") suggestions by the pouchful arrive in every mail—some of them witty, some of them ingenious, some of them rather too elaborate for the comparatively simple circumstances they seek to elucidate, and many, many of them just polite, sensible and adequate.

Through the sultry, tropic night, pacing the bridge in the outer harbor of Vera Cruz, alone with the sea and the southern stars, gallant officers of our battleships have accelerated the long hours of their (— vigil by pondering Mr. A.'s predicament. Strong, silent Wyoming cattlemen—"great hurly burly men with red blood in their veins" (see any publisher's catalmenogue), alighting from their limousines, all but exhausted after the round-up, have ever and anon whiled away the interval between tea and dressing for dinner by endeavoring to decide what Mr. A. actually did say to Mrs. B. Southern ladies— scores of them—from those fair territories long since annexed respectively by George W. Cable, Amelie Rives and James Lane Allen (with here and there an invasion for purposes of literary necessity by Owen Wister), have put aside their embroidery frames to muse among the live oaks, the bulldurham, or the bluegrass (as the state may be), and determine in their charming, pictorial fashion whether Mr. A. should return with his shield, without it, or on it. The response has been immediate and universal; even as these enthusiastic words were being recorded a communication arrived from some improbable dot in the Pacific the very name of which sounds like a sapphire sea listlessly lapping a reef of coral.

IT will doubtless be recalled that—in the April issue of Vanity Fair—Mr. A., while walking on Fifth Avenue, met Mrs. B. who invited him to dinner on Tuesday the i8th. Desirous of evading this festivity he impulsively replies that he has already accepted an invitation to dinner for Tuesday the i8th from Mr. and Mrs. C.

"Oh, you must be mistaken," Mrs. B. exclaims, "for on that evening Mr. and Mrs. C. have promised to dine with us." Problem! What should A. do?

It was exceedingly difficult for the judges to agree on the two replies that seemed most pleasantly and plausibly to rescue Mr. A. from his embarrassing situation, although by eliminating first, all of the solutions beginning, "Well, Mrs. B., the drinks are on me!" and secondly, all those in which Mr. A. lowered his voice and chivalrously hinted that Mrs. C. was a dope-fiend, the process was in a measure simplified. In the opinion of the judges, these writers did not quite succeed in sounding precisely the note that Vanity Fair had hoped to elicit from them.

While of course, every letter was more than once read with the utmost care, it was but human that the judges should have been particuarly interested in the answers from persons who by reason of their great talents are constantly, as the phrase is, "in the public eye," and it is doubtless significant of something (although for the moment I am unable to say just what) that to none of them was awarded a prize. Louise dosser Hale, for instance, writes: "To overcome an awkward moment one should develop swiftly a second situation of even greater awkwardness, thus obliterating the original grievance. In the case of Mr. A., he should hurriedly swoon upon the pavement, catch at Mrs. B. as he goes down and if possible take her with him." Mrs. Louise Glosser Hale, as the readers of Vanity Fair would probably testify, is America's leading actress-authoress; she writes brilliant, disturbing books and by her acting is generously given to bestowing upon playwrights a reputation for subtlety and humor that without her cooperation they would not always deserve. But in this instance the judges felt that Mrs. Hale had perhaps too readily responded to the call of the dramatic instinct. Not only without any difficulty whatever but with a positive thrill one can visualize Mr. A. clutching Mrs. B. in a "double Nelson" as the curtain rapidly descends on act two, but in the plein air of upper Fifth Avenue —near St. Patrick's Cathedral—the device somehow smacks of the artificial.

A distinguished New England physician whose name we discreetly withhold, declares, "I should instantly emit a noise from the corner of my mouth in imitation of a peanutroaster. This would at once attract the colony of gray squirrels from. Central Park, which would so distract Mrs. B.'s attention that my faux pas would pass unnoticed." But does not this resourceful doctor of medicine err in attributing to the average man gifts that unfortunately but few of us possess? In the ecstatic words of that most magnetic and mirth evoking artist, T. Roy Barnes, we know we are "good," but even so, have we ever dreamed that from the corner of our mouth we could successfully emit an imitation of a peanut-roaster? Of humanity the doctor has too high an opinion; he is just another of those incorrigible idealists.

Mr. Harrison Rhodes, long and most favorably known as an interpreter of the politer phases of American life, tripped up—so the judges decided—in an altogether different way. Quite bluntly he declared he did not believe that Mr. A. had been invited to dinner by anybody. "I think he's boasting. She never asked him," he emphatically asserts. This of course, is a perfectly legitimate opinion to maintain, but is it not in the nature of destructive criticism rather than of helpful advice?

AS many of the answers were alike in matter if not in manner, it became necessary in awarding the second prize to choose from among them the one that in the opinion of the judges was most gracefully expressed. In other words the ideas being identical in a great number of potential second prize winners, literary style became an influential factor in making the award.

The first prize was won by Mr. John Robertson, of 140 East Fortieth Street, New York, who cleverly recounts his meeting with Mrs. B. as if it had been an actual occurrence. After Mrs. B. had assured him that he "must be mistaken," "the ensuing silence," writes Mr. Robertson, "lasted but a moment. I recovered myself and fixing an indignant eye on Mrs. B. I replied, 'If there is any mistake, my dear Mrs. B., you are making it. I suppose you think I am John Robertson?'

"Mrs. B. looked surprised. 'Yes, I did think so,' she murmured with a partial loss of her ominous manner.

"'I am always being taken for him,' remarked truthfully—and that was the last that I have seen of Mrs. B."

Could anything be more delightfully audacious, unanswerable and successful? Guilty neither of untruth nor impoliteness, Mr. Robertson instantly causes Mrs. B. to assume that she has accosted a total stranger and invited him to dinner. One pictures her moving rapidly away in great confusion muttering to herself, "He evidently knew who I was although I don't remember ever having seen him before. I should have sworn it was John Robertson—although now that I think of it, Mr. Robertson is much taller."

THE second prize was awarded to one of the many answers in which Mr. A. discovers that either he or Mrs. C. had made a mistake in the date of the C.'s dinner and while it necessitates Mr. A.'s dining at the B.'s when he does not wish to (something that Mr. Robertson happily eluded), it is as a solution, obvious and sensible. However, most of the writers who chose it caused Mr. A. to explain at some length that his inability to remember engagements was due to the sad fact of his being a bachelor, and as the five unmarried judges were inclined to take exception to a certain somewhat sweeping assertion of the Creator (see Genesis II, 18) they finally gave the second prize to Mr. Thomas Sturgis, of 500 Maple Street, Richmond Hill, N. Y., who simply wrote,

" Mr. A. must either slander his own memory or that of Mrs. C., trusting—in the latter case —to square himself with her afterwards and, gracefully surrendering, pay his ransom in American Beauties or other sufficiently costly flowers, thereby gaining a kindly word instead of a hostile criticism."

(Continued on page 90)

(Continued from page 27)

And now for S. O. S. number three. It is an interesting one, and against a variety of backgrounds happens frequently. It once happened to me on a German steamship between Hoboken and Hamburg, when a delicious token of esteem sent to me by loving friends was in all innocence appropriated and greatly enjoyed by an obese dramatic contralto from the Metropolitan Opera House, next to whom at table, I had the honor of silting. I did not get a taste of it.

Mr. A. (not, however, the same Mr. A.) and a friend of his—a lady—attend one of those semi-public banquets at which one pays quite a tidy little sum for the privilege of eating a not astonishingly good dinner and of listening afterwards to the so-called eloquence of various distinguished citizens. Thus, while the tickets include both food for digestion and food for reflection, they do not include anything to drink except, of course, unlimited draughts from the excellent municipal waterworks. Mr. A. therefore orders a bottle of champagne which the waiter places in front of him almost in the centre of the immensely long and crowded table. Opposite Mr. A. and his companion sit another lady and gentleman, and the latter, under the pleased if erroneous impression that champagne is included in the price of admission, immediately fills his glass and that of his neighbor. They arc vivacious, ingenuous souls and while poor Mr. A. is asking his companion what measures he ought to take, they fill their glasses again. And there you are—right off like that, four glasses of Mr. A.'s champagne have been held up and subjected to unusual and cruel treatment before his very eyes.

What did Mr. A. do? What would yon have done?

Two prizes, one of ten dollars, and a second prize of five dollars will be awarded by Vanity Fair for the best solution of Mr. A.'s difficulty. Replies must be limited to fifty words; they must be addressed to Vanity Fair, and they must be received not later than June 20th. The names of the winners—and their winning answers —will be published in the August issue of Vanity Fair.