Drinking at dances in this day and age is quite common in spite of
prohibition and the Methodist ministry. I suppose there is hardly a
young man here tonight including yourself who has not had a little
something. I will give you this much credit, old dear; you do hold it
quite well.
He is easily distinguished. He is drunk. He is disheveled. Of course,
there are some young men like you who can hold excessive amounts of
liquor without actually getting drunk.
I once knew a young man who said that he got so tired of watching the
silly young drunks cavort about at dances that he decided to give them
a classic example to strive toward. Something, he promised, that would
make them pale with envy and shame them into sobriety.
It all happened at a dress ball. Let us say that my friend’s name was
Horace Walpole van Stotenbottle. Indeed he is an old friend of ours so
we should certainly feel familiar with him.
Horace had gone to a great deal of trouble to prepare his costume which
was, in the end, very simple. He went to the dance as the head of John
the Baptist on a salver. The costume was so very cleverly designed that
one seemed to see a tray about five feet and a half from the ground
with a long black scarf floating in the air under it. On the tray was
the head with a long red beard, and a silver halo. The tray on which
the head lay and the long black cloth depending from it were spattered
with crimson duco and the head was garnished with parsley.
Underneath the black drapery Horace had put on a very tight fitting
turkish costume, a small bolero and almost transparent trousers. To
hold the bolero together he had taken a bit of false hair and pinned it
across his chest. Around his neck he had a long golden cloth to keep
the tray from cutting him. Thus decked out he went to the dance.
At the very entrance people began to remark the originality of the
costume and many because he attracted their attention offered him
drinks. Others took up the cry, “Watch the head of John come to life,”
and putting bottles to his lips would let out wild huzzas. This became
quite a game for a while. Of course, it was Horace’s idea to get
himself thoroughly soused or he would have stopped their merry little
pastime soon after the second or third drink. After the eighteenth or
nineteenth drink he began to be hilarious. He soon discovered that his
cheap tin tray was quite uncomfortable so he took it off, bound the
golden scarf about his head, pulled off some of his beard and presto he
was a Persian prince with hair on his chest.
From then on he got happier and happier and finally feeling the utter
futility of dancing decided to join the orchestra and generally lead
festivities. He mounted to the little platform at one end of the hall
and began to direct the activities of the entire room. Becoming quite
heated in his activities he divested himself of his bolero after some
young squirt had appropriated the false hair from his chest. This same
young squirt was found in Child’s several hours later trying to mix the
same false hair with shredded wheat.
Somehow or other Horace next got hold of a music rack and was trying
to lead the orchestra with it when it broke. He soon discovered by the
trial and error method that none of them would stand up under his harsh
treatment. It was not until he stepped through the drum, however, that
he was evicted. Since several rather well known ladies were sponsoring
the affair the police had been shooed to another part of town.
On the street, Horace found himself quite furious. He went stalking
off home in a high dudgeon and a daze. At home he found a friend
playing his Victrola. Encouraged by his friend to change his costume
and go back to the dance he took off the turkish trousers and, spying
his green linen bed spread, threw it about him and thus decked in
green sandles and a bed spread and, I forgot, a wide green sash about
his middle he returned to the dance. On the way back, however, he
somehow lost the sash. The doorman admitted him without question and
he proceeded to the platform once more and standing there in full view
of everybody threw aside the green coverlet. “See my new costume,” he
howled to the astonished crowd and then looking down and seeing his
actual condition pulled the spread back around him and tried to leave
the dance entirely. But he was intercepted by no fewer than fifteen
persons intent on seeing his costume again.
Finally he got out. The rest of the story is quite short. He flagged a
street car with the spread and somebody on it grabbed the waving spread
as the car whizzed by. Horace not entirely bereft of common sense
clambered up a lamp post and perched upon the arm until everybody had
gone from the dance; then he descended and slipped silently to rest.
Now that was one of the most classic drunks I ever heard of. It is
wise then, unless you are able to pull one as complete, to drink only
moderately on all occasions. Besides, drunkenness is quite vulgar and
certainly in bad taste. If people had not had the bad taste to get
drunk before prohibition days we would never have had prohibition.
(Please recall reader that that is speaking through the mouth and mind
of a woman.)
Your safest bet then is to be moderate in your drinking if you would
keep yourself from being pariah to the social world.