Thoughts for a broken—down bull

JULIAN JEROME

Let's face it: the depression is here to stay; everyone is broke, and what is more, the deflated exchequer is not only the order of the day, but of the morrow. The beautiful boom years when you and you and you (and even I) were rich, have taken their place in history along with silent movies, Ford jokes, Clara Bow, the Black Bottom, Florida land values, the Halls-Mills trial, The Bridge of San Luis Key, and the election of Herbert Hoover—phenomena never to come again.

But now, in the long perspective of the lean years between, the stock broker and his lady, and all the suddenly impoverished customers of the once victorious Wall Street conquistadores look back upon that golden era as the time of Bountiful Blessings. They have forgotten, in the ungrateful manner of nouveaux-pauvres, the horrors that were daily visited upon the rich, remembering only the yea-saying, but never the nay-saying, which followed all too often any conscious enumeration of these blessings. And you have only to enumerate them to realize that the law of diminishing returns was just as operative oil Park Avenue as in Wall Street. There was no pleasure or profit which did not have its large and inevitable BUT. . . .

Before the Park Avenue exodus, you liked those lovely lissom blondes who helped beguile so many afternoon hours on the way home from the office, BUT—most of them had vile tempers, swore like marines, got sick when they drank; and, in the final analysis, their bleached hair was not pleasant to the touch. . . . You thought that pink or black crepe de Chine sheets looked aphrodisiac, BUT—they were sticky to sleep between. . . . Champagne at dinner made the evening spin lightly by, BUT the next day dragged like hell. . . . Rolls Royces, Hispano Suizas, Minervas, had low-swung thrilling tonneaux, BUT you had to remove your top-hat, and you usually caught a cold, which was hardly worth five figures. . . . You felt like a big-shot sitting in the first row at the prize-fight, BUT you knew that the fight was fixed. . . . Ziegfeld openings were glamourous with orchids and beauties and ermine, BUT it hurt you somewhere deep down in your Anglo-Saxon vitals to see how obviously the Chosen People had the most money; besides, your wife looked a lot older than you liked in the garish lights of the lobby. ... It was a great thing to have servants to do things for you, BUT cooks gave notice every month, chefs every day, chauffeurs gambled with your life, butlers stole your likker, and valets knew too damn much—and told it to your wife's maid. . . . Your wife got a lot of pleasure out of her pearl necklace, BUT you were always being hounded by insurance brokers, and she was shadowed by gangsters. ... It was pleasant to be popular, and dine out, BUT you never got anything to eat between November and May but pheasant and wild rice; the play you saw afterwards, you had seen twice before, and you had to return every invitation you accepted. ... It was a glowing and prideful thing to buy your wife a big diamond bracelet, BUT one of her friends always seemed to have a bigger one. . . . Having dinner parties made you feel important, BUT your wife always scolded you afterwards for telling naughty stories, for talking too much, or for not talking at all, for flirting with one of her friends, or for ignoring one of them, for discussing the market after dinner, or for not mentioning the market at all. . . . Those Great Débutante Balls at the Ritz were spectacular, brilliant and tantalizing affairs, BUT you always got stuck with your wife's oldest friend, oldest in every sense of the word, and nobody cut in. . . . It was gratifying to the ego to sit in an opera box among the Vanderbilts, Whitneys, et al, BUT Wagner was slow torture, and stifling yawns was bad for the libido. . . . Your wife got in with a lot of Social Register aces, BUT you took a lot of dead timber into the firm. . . . You always wanted to be a "turfman", and when you bought a box at Belmont Park that is what the society columns called you, BUT you never knew the difference between a thoroughbred and a half bred, or which end of a horse got spavins; and whenever you walked to the paddock to look them over, you returned with hay-fever. . . . Palm Beach was a place in which you felt plutocratic, BUT it also left you mentally jaded, physically enervated, and hideously freckled on the bald spots. . . . Ocean voyages were healthy BUT you happened to he subject to seasickness. . . . The Folies Bergere were almost as shocking as you could have wished, BUT Paris is spinach if you don't talk French. . . . You were very well-tailored, BUT you spent a lot of time standing in made-to-order shoes that pinched, having a clucking tailor fit your bulging waist-line. ... It was wonderful to he able to do something for your family, BUT they bothered you lots more than they do now. ... It gave you a sense of power to own a yacht, BUT it was the devil's own job to find free, or congenial souls to come aboard, and once aboard, there seemed to he no place to go. . . . Everyone Battered you by telling you that you resembled a young J. P. Morgan and that so-and-so must do your portrait in oils, BUT he did you in dollars, and the result was not as flattering as the request. . . . The antique furniture in your living-room was very rare, BUT it was always chirping and cracking ominously beneath the weight of your guests. . . . The home papers copied press photographs of your wife standing outside of Pierre's, BUT she looked Something Awful in them. . . . You liked to feel like a butterand-egg man and send orchids to divorcees, BUT they never wore them, and said that flowers spoiled their gowns. . . . your first name that towards the end you began to feel like a head-waiter. . . . Your guests, glancing at the titles in your library, complimented you on your intellect, BUT you never read or had the time to read any of those hooks with which your decorator and several book-of-the-month clubs had supplied you. . . .

It deliciously fed your vanity to he asked for advice on the market by pretty women, BUT when tips went wrong, you had to make up their losses, and still manage to convey the impression that your intentions were honourable. . . . You felt like an aristocrat when you saw your name listed as a member of swanky and important clubs, BUT you never could drink in the afternoons, and you looked ridiculous on a squash-racquet court. . . . You sent your children to the best schools, BUT you never saw anything of them at all. . . . Your wife had begun to take care of her figure, BUT you had a hunch she took care of it for someone else. . . . You had a handsome bedroom, a magnificent dressing-room, an awe-inspiring bath, BUT nothing, absolutely nothing was handy. . . . You had a house in Palm Beach, a camp in the Adirondacks, a cottage on Long Island, a pent house in town, BUT you spent most of your time getting to these places by motor or train. . . . You could afford to play Backgammon at five dollars a game and lose, BUT your luck was usually had, and had luck made you irritable. . . . You had plenty of time, and plenty of money for golf, BUT your game grew steadily worse. . . . You also had plenty of time, and plenty of invitations to Sex, BUT you got pretty sick of having IT thrown in your face, and secretly you weren't as biological as you pretended to he. . . . You could afford the finest doctors, the most famous specialists. BUT you seemed to have a lot of things the matter with you that don't bother you now. . . . You knew a lot of people, you had many acquaintances, you were a familiar figure around town, BUT so many people called you by

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The atmosphere of night clubs was languorous with perfume, heavy with seduction, vibrant with youthful, swaying bodies, BUT it was also foul with smoke, stifling with heat, nerve-rasping with noise, and out of the corners of your eyes you caught amused looks when you tried to dance the tango. . . . You were known as a prominent Bull, BUT you frequently suspected yourself of being a colossal ass. . . . You boasted of the big business you had laboriously built up, BUT in your heart you knew that it was a Topsy that "just growed". . . . You had all the money you wanted with which to do all the things you always wanted, BUT somehow you never did them. . . .

In short, you lived high, wide and handsome, BUT you had nervous indigestion, a cocktail breath, insomnia, and an artificial laugh . . . and . . . you thought you had a lot of friends, BUT you know better now. . . .

Thinking upon these things, even if you are down to your last hundred thousand dollars, you may find the philosophical fortitude to resist blowing out your brains, or taking a fashionable leap from the top of some tall, unrented building.