Those of you who have dwelt--or even lingered--in Chicago, Illinois,
are familiar with the region known as the Loop. For those others of
you to whom Chicago is a transfer point between New York and California
there is presented this brief explanation:
The Loop is a clamorous, smoke-infested district embraced by the iron
arms of the elevated tracks. In a city boasting fewer millions, it
would be known familiarly as downtown. From Congress to Lake Street,
from Wabash almost to the river, those thunderous tracks make a
complete circle, or loop. Within it lie the retail shops, the
commercial hotels, the theaters, the restaurants. It is the Fifth
Avenue and the Broadway of Chicago.
And he who frequents it by night in search of amusement and cheer is
known, vulgarly, as a Loop-hound.
Jo Hertz was a Loop-hound. On the occasion of those sparse first
nights granted the metropolis of the Middle West he was always present,
third row, aisle, left. When a new Loop cafe' was opened, Jo's table
always commanded an unobstructed view of anything worth viewing. On
entering he was wont to say, "Hello, Gus," with careless cordiality to
the headwaiter, the while his eye roved expertly from table to table as
he removed his gloves. He ordered things under glass, so that his
table, at midnight or thereabouts, resembled a hotbed that favors the
bell system. The waiters fought for him. He was the kind of man who
mixes his own salad dressing. He liked to call for a bowl, some cracked
ice, lemon, garlic, paprika, salt, pepper, vinegar, and oil and make a
rite of it. People at near-by tables would lay down their knives and
forks to watch, fascinated. The secret of it seemed to lie in using
all the oil in sight and calling for more.
That was Jo--a plump and lonely bachelor of fifty. A plethoric,
roving-eyed, and kindly man, clutching vainly at the garments of a
youth that had long slipped past him. Jo Hertz, in one of those
pinch-waist suits and a belted coat and a little green hat, walking up
Michigan Avenue of a bright winter's afternoon, trying to take the curb
with a jaunty youthfulness against which every one of his fat-encased
muscles rebelled, was a sight for mirth or pity, depending on one's
vision.
The gay-dog business was a late phase in the life of Jo Hertz. He had
been a quite different sort of canine. The staid and harassed brother
of three unwed and selfish sisters is an underdog.
At twenty-seven Jo had been the dutiful, hard-working son (in the
wholesale harness business) of a widowed and gummidging mother, who
called him Joey. Now and then a double wrinkle would appear between
Jo's eyes--a wrinkle that had no business there at twenty-seven. Then
Jo's mother died, leaving him handicapped by a deathbed promise, the
three sisters, and a three-story-and-basement house on Calumet Avenue.
Jo's wrinkle became a fixture.
"Joey," his mother had said, in her high, thin voice, "take care of the
girls."
"I will, Ma," Jo had choked.
"Joey," and the voice was weaker, "promise me you won't marry till the
girls are all provided for." Then as Jo had hesitated, appalled:
"Joey, it's my dying wish. Promise!"
"I promise, Ma," he had said.
Whereupon his mother had died, comfortably, leaving him with a
completely ruined life.
They were not bad-looking girls, and they had a certain style, too.
That is, Stell and Eva had. Carrie, the middle one, taught school over
on the West Side. In those days it took her almost two hours each way.
She said the kind of costume she required should have been corrugated
steel. But all three knew what was being worn, and they wore it--or
fairly faithful copies of it. Eva, the housekeeping sister, had a
needle knack. She could skim the State Street windows and come away
with a mental photograph of every separate tuck, hem, yoke, and ribbon.
Heads of departments showed her the things they kept in drawers, and
she went home and reproduced them with the aid of a seamstress by the
day. Stell, the youngest, was the beauty. They called her Babe.
Twenty-three years ago one's sisters did not strain at the household
leash, nor crave a career. Carrie taught school, and hated it. Eva
kept house expertly and complainingly. Babe's profession was being the
family beauty, and it took all her spare time. Eva always let her
sleep until ten.
This was Jo's household, and he was the nominal head of it. But it was
an empty title. The three women dominated his life. They weren't
consciously selfish. If you had called them cruel they would have put
you down as mad. When you are the lone brother of three sisters, it
means that you must constantly be calling for, escorting, or dropping
one of them somewhere. Most men of Jo's age were standing before their
mirror of a Saturday night, whistling blithely and abstractedly while
they discarded a blue polka-dot for a maroon tie, whipped off the
maroon for a shot-silk and at the last moment decided against the
shot-silk in favor of a plain black-and-white because she had once said
she preferred quiet ties. Jo, when he should have been preening his
feathers for conquest, was saying:
"Well, my God, I AM hurrying! Give a man time, can't you? I just got
home. You girls been laying around the house all day. No wonder you're
ready."
He took a certain pride in seeing his sisters well dressed, at a time
when he should have been reveling in fancy waistcoats and
brilliant-hued socks, according to the style of that day and the
inalienable right of any unwed male under thirty, in any day. On those
rare occasions when his business necessitated an out-of-town trip, he
would spend half a day floundering about the shops selecting
handkerchiefs, or stockings, or feathers, or gloves for the girls.
They always turned out to be the wrong kind, judging by their reception.