There is something in him that desires expression, that will never
achieve expression, and that will always leave him just such an absurd
little clown of a fop.
* * * * *
When the manicure girls read this they will snort. Because they know him
too well. "Of all the half-witted dumbbells I ever saw in my life," they
will say, "he wins the cement earmuffs. Nobody home, honest to Gawd, he's
nothin' but a nasty little fourflusher. We know him and his kind."
Fortunately I don't know him as well as the manicure girls do, so there is
room for this speculation as I watch him in the evening now and then. I
see him standing under the blaze of lobby lights, in the thick of passing
fur coats and dinner jackets, in the midst of laughter, escorts,
intrigues, actors, famous names.
He stands perfectly still, with his right arm crooked as if he were going
to place his hand over his heart and bow, with his left arm slightly
curved at his side. Grace. This is a pose denoting grace. He got it
somewhere from an illustration. And he holds it. Here is life. The real
stuff. The real thing. Lights and laughter. Glories, coiffures, swell
dames, great actors, guys loaded with coin.
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