Me for that summer resort gag--Oh! fine!
I fell for a Saratoga set-back this summer but never no more for
mine.
At night I used to sit up with the rest of the social push and
drink highballs to make me sick, so I could drink Saratoga water in
the morning to make me well.
That's what is called reciprocity, because it works both ways
against the middle.
Isn't it the limit the way people from all over the country will
rush to these fashionable summer resorts with wide open pocketbooks
and with their bank accounts frothing at the mouth!
The most popular fad at every summer resort I've ever climbed into
is to watch the landlord reaching out for the coin.
Husbands make bets with their wives whether the landlord of the
hotel will get all their money in an hour or an hour and a half.
Both husband and wife loose; because the landlord generally gets it
in ten minutes.
At some of the hotel diningrooms it costs six dollars to peep in,
eight dollars to walk in, and fifteen dollars to get near enough to
a waiter to talk soup.
You can see lots of swell guys in the dining-rooms who are now
using a fork in public for the first time.
This reminds me of an experience I had in a certain summer resort
dining-room not long ago.
At a table near me sat Ike Gooseheimer.
Ike is a self-made man and he made a quick job of it.
Ike was eating with his knife and doing it so recklessly that I
felt like yelling for the sticking plaster.
After I had watched him for about five minutes trying to juggle the
new peas on a knife, it got on my nerves, so I spoke to him.
"Ike," I said, thinking possibly I might cure him with a bit of
sarcasm, "aren't you afraid you will cut yourself with the sword?"
[Illustration: "Aren't you afraid you will cut yourself with the
sword?"]
"Oh! no, no," Ike answered, looking at the knife with contempt;
"there is no danger at all. But at the Palmer House in
Chicago--Ah! there they have sharp knives!"
Ike is beyond the breakers for mine.
The races at Saratoga were extremely exciting.
A friend of mine volunteered to pick out the winners for me, but
after I lost eight dollars I decided that it would be cheaper to
pick out a new friend.
But I do love to mingle with Society at the summer resorts.
It isn't generally known, but one of my great-grandfathers was
present when the original 400 landed at Plymouth Rock.
My great-grandfather owned the Rock.
A couple of nights after the original 400 landed on Plymouth Rock
the leader of the smart set, Mrs. Von Tweedledum, gave a full dress
ball.
My great-grandfather looked in at the full dress ball and was so
shocked that he went and opened a clothing store next day.
Society never forgave him for this insinuation.
But, say, isn't it immense the way the doings of these Society dubs
are chronicled in the Society papers?
In case you haven't noticed them I would like to put you wise to a
few: