by Damon Runyon
He opens the inquiry this morning with a series of questions directed at Mr. Whitney. He wants to know a few names on the foreign lists of the House of Morgan.
Senator Bob has a large voice. You can imagine him singing “Carolina Sunshine” most effectively.
Senator Bob asks Mr. Whitney if he has ever heard that a member of royalty was asked to subscribe to the Morgan units at the inside figure. Mr. Whitney looks somewhat perplexed. The crowd in the inquiry room leans forward expectantly.
Senator Bob becomes specific. He wants to know if Mr. Whitney has ever heard that King Albert of Belgium was ever offered the privilege that so far seems to have been allotted only to members of our best families.
Mr. Whitney replied, “I not only never heard of it, but I am sure it isn’t true.”
Then Senator Bob asks him about members of the French government, and King George of England, and members of King George’s family.
Mr. Whitney insists, “I am sure that it is not true.”
Then Senator Bob says, “Now there is another chap I want to ask you about, I can’t pronounce his name. Sometimes I call him Moose-oo-leeny, and sometimes Muss-a-lon-ey. Well, anyway, whatever it is, did he ever participate in these units?”
Mr. Whitney thinks not, but he says he will supply the committee with copies of the foreign lists of the House of Morgan.
Mr. Pecora bows politely and with respect to Mr. Whitney as he excuses him from the stand, and Mr. Whitney bows in return. They have the measure of each other’s steel, these two gentlemen, one the scion of Italian immigrant parents, the other of a proud old American family.
OCCASIONAL PROSE
WHY ME?
When physical calamity befalls, the toughest thing for the victim to overcome is the feeling of resentment that it should have happened to him.
“Why me?” he keeps asking himself, dazedly. “Of all the millions of people around, why me?”
It becomes like a pulse beat—“Why me? Why me? Why me?”
Sometimes he reviews his whole life step by step to see if he can put his finger on some circumstance in which he may have been at such grievous fault as to merit disaster.
Did he commit some black sin somewhere back down the years? Did he betray the sacred trust of some fellow human being? Is he being punished for some special wrongdoing? “Why me?”
He wakes suddenly at night from a sound sleep to consciousness of his affliction and to the clock-like ticking in his brain—“Why me? Why me? Why me?”
He reflects, “Why not that stinker Smith? Why not that louse Jones? Why not that bum Brown? Why me? Why me? Why me?”
Was he guilty of carelessness or error in judgment? “Why me? Why? Why? Why?”
It is a question that has been asked by afflicted mortals through the ages. It is being asked more than ever just now as the maimed men come back from war broken in body and spirit and completely bewildered, asking “Why me?”
I do not have the answer, of course. Not for myself nor for anyone else. I, too, am just a poor mug groping in the dark, though sometimes I think of the words of young Elihu reproving Job and his three pals: “Look into the heavens, and see; and behold the clouds which are higher than thou.”
The Book of Job may have been an attempt to solve the problem why the righteous suffer and to point out that such suffering is often permitted as a test of faith and a means of grace. They sure put old Job over the hurdles as an illustration.
He was a character who lived in the land of Uz, ’way back in the times recorded in the Old Testament. He had more money than most folks have hay and he was also of great piety. He stood good with the Lord, who took occasion to comment favorably on Job one day to Satan, who had appeared before Him.
“There is no one like Job,” remarked the Lord to Satan. “He is a perfect and upright man. He fears God and eschews evil.”
“Well, why not?” said Satan. “You have fixed him up so he is sitting pretty in every way. But you just let a spell of bad luck hit him and see what happens. He will curse you to your face.”
“You think so?” said the Lord. “All right, I will put all his belongings in your power to do with as you please. Only don’t touch Job himself.”
Not long afterwards, the Sabeans copped all of Job’s oxen and asses and killed his servants and his sheep were burned up and the Chaldeans grabbed his camels and slaughtered more of his servants and a big wind blew down a house and destroyed his sons.
But so far from getting sore at the Lord as Satan had figured would happen after these little incidents, Job rent his mantle and shaved his head and fell down upon the ground and worshipped and said:
“Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither; the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Now had I been Satan I would have given Job up then and there, but lo, and behold, the next time the Lord held a meeting Satan again appeared and when the Lord started boosting Job for holding fast to his integrity, Satan sniffed disdainfully and said:
“Skin for skin, yea, all that a man has he will give for his life, but just you touch his bone and his flesh and see what your Mr. Job does.”
“All right,” the Lord said, “I will put him in your hands, only save his life.”
Then Satan smote poor Job with boils from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. I reckon that was the worst case of boils anyone ever heard of, and Job’s wife remarked:
“Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God, and die.”
“Woman,” Job said, “you are a fool. Shall we receive good at the hands of God and not evil?”
But when those pals of Job’s, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, came to see him he let out quite a beef to them and in fact cursed the day he was born. In the end, however, after listening to discourses from his pals of a length that must have made him as tired as the boils, Job humbly confessed that God is omnipotent and omnipresent and repented his former utterances and demeanor “in dust and ashes” and the Lord made him more prosperous than ever before.
“Why me?”
“—Therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.”
SWEET DREAMS
We think the greatest institution ever devised for human comfort is the bed. Let us talk about beds.
A man is usually born in bed, and spends at least half his life in bed. If he is lucky, he dies in bed. We used to think that the best place to die was on the battlefield, face to the foe, etc., but that was when we were much younger and more casual about dying.
Now we know that a battlefield is likely to be an untidy sort of place and much more lonesome for the purpose of dying than a nice clean bed, with the doctors and the sorrowing relatives clustered about, all wondering how soon they are going to get paid off.
However, let us not pursue those morbid reflections about beds. We prefer thinking of beds in their more cheerful aspects. We like to think of a bed as a place of refuge and rest—as a sanctuary against the outside world with its troubles and woes, where sometimes in beautiful dreams, a fellow can live a few hours in ecstasy.
Of course there may be a few bad dreams, too, but we always figured they are stood off by the pleasure derived from awakening to a realization that they are not true. Only the other night a bloke shoved us off a twenty-story building, but we woke up just before we hit the ground and our joy on discovering that we were still safe in bed completely canceled the few sweaty seconds we suffered while falling.
We claim to be one of the greatest authorities in the United States on beds—that is, on the sleeping qualities of beds. We have slept in beds in every State in the Union, and we must say good beds are fairly common in these days when the construction of springs and mattresses has reached a degree approaching perfection, and American housewives, in furnishing their homes, are properly placing more importance on beds than on any other items of household equipment.
We can remembe
r when some hotel beds, and a lot in private homes, too, were pretty hard to take. Even now I occasionally run across a survivor of the times when a bed was commonly just a sort of rack with a lumpy mattress and creaky springs and skimpy coverings for a fellow to toss around on between suns, though in general Americans have become educated to the idea of complete comfort in beds.
The trouble with Americans about beds in the past was their theory that a bed typified indolence. They apparently did not realize that the better a fellow rested in bed, the livelier he was likely to be when he got up, and that the better the bed, the better his rest. It is our opinion that the energy of Americans generally has greatly increased since the improvement in beds.
We hold that many Americans owe their lack of appreciation in beds to faulty education in youth. Some parents send their children to bed as punishment. If they would reverse this procedure and send them to bed only as a reward, and keep them out of bed as a penalty, it would inspire in the kids a respect and appreciation for beds for which they would thank their fathers and mothers in later years.
It might be a good idea, too, to teach the youngsters right from taw that they should never take any worries to bed with them—that they should regard bed as a secure nest in which they should rest without giving a thought to worldly concerns. If you started on them early enough maybe they would grow up with the knack of disregarding the winds of worry rattling at the window-panes, or the rain of adversity pattering on the roofs that disturbs so much adult peace of mind in bed.
We never cared much for that Spartan simplicity in beds that some fellows profess to fancy. A cot in the corner, or a crude pallet on the ground ’neath the stars is not for us. We went through all that in our army days, and you can have it.
We will take all the luxury with which a bed can possibly be surrounded—a gentle, yielding mattress, and quiet, cushiony springs, and soft, downy pillows, and snowy linen and the richest of coverings. A fellow gets little enough out of life under any circumstances without making his hours of rest too tough.
We like a bed wide and long that we can kick around in without falling out or stubbing our toes. As we have said, good beds are common enough, but a truly great bed—one that fits perfectly, and that sleeps good, is a rarity that a fellow should cherish above all other possessions. We have a bed in New York City that we think is the sleepingest bed in the whole world and would not part with it for anything, but of course another fellow might not like it. It might not just fit him. That is the thing—to get a bed that fits.
I realize, of course, that my appreciation of a bed is due largely to the fact that I am one of those fortunate chaps who sleeps fairly well, for which I am grateful to a kind providence. I can imagine nothing worse than insomnia. I am lucky enough to be able to sleep after a fashion standing up, or hanging on a hook, but in a good bed—say, that is when I really saw wood!
PASSING THE WORD ALONG
Since I lost my voice or about ninety per cent of its once bell-like timbre, I have discovered many inconveniences as well as some striking conveniences.
The greatest inconvenience is that it involved explanations to friends on meeting them for the first time since the vocal abatement and they are grieved by the absence of my former thunderous salutations.
You see in my set warmth of greeting is rated by the size of the hellos you give and receive and I was always noted for issuing the hood rive, or top size, the good old “Hello, hello, hello, hello,” the old “well, well, well, hello, hello, hello.”
Now that I am perforce down to the 67⁄8 size hello for one and all which is just a nubbin of a hello and the brush-off kind you give a gee you do not like, my friends are inclined to huffiness towards me until I explain about the voice.
This is a bit of strain in itself but fortunately they soon start telling me about remedies that cure other blokes they know so all I have to do is to stand there and nod my head at intervals.
I find the nod wonderfully non-committal, especially when someone is delivering a big knock against someone else because word cannot be carried to the knockee that Runyon was a party to the knock. At least they cannot quote a nod.
I am occasionally distressed by strangers to whom I address myself in my low murmur answering me in imitative whisper, possibly inadvertently, possibly because they think I am kidding and possibly just because they have no sense. Sometimes even my friends do the same thing in that gentle spirit of mockery of human affliction from which many actors and others have long drawn their humor.
You have undoubtedly heard some of our public performers discoursing humorously on cross-eyed persons, on bald heads, on the deaf and the dumb and the lame and the halt. You have perhaps seen them simulate limps and other distortions of the body to point up their jokes. It is a common practice for us to apply nicknames suggestive of affliction such as “Gimp,” “Frip,” “Humpty,” “Deafy,” “Blinky,” “Baldy” and the like.
False teeth and glass eyes and the toupee have long been standard items of jest among our jokesters. A person who is compelled to resort to a hearing device, one of the greatest boons to afflicted humanity ever invented, is said to be “wired for sound” which is supposed to be good for a hearty laugh.
And not only is infirmity one of our leading topics of humor but it is often brought up by men in moments of anger against the infirm, as when they say things like “That one-legged so-and-so,” as if the infirmity itself was a reproach.
Of course the humor that deals with infirmities is in bad taste. Most American humor is in bad taste and growing worse under the present vogue for the suggestive and downright obscene in the spoken and written word. But even the suggestive and the obscene is not as unkind as the humor dealing with bodily affliction.
The hale and hearty shun the afflicted and I cannot say I blame them much. I can well imagine that I am a great trial to my friends who have to bend their ears close to my kisser to hear what I am saying. Maybe it would be better for all concerned if I did not try to talk at all because everybody else is talking these days and I would not be missed.
I carry a pad of paper in my pocket and when conversation is indicated I jot down my end of the gabbling on paper and pass it on to my vis-à-vis who takes a glaum at the chirography, crumples up the slip of paper and casts it aside, nodding his head or muttering a non-committal um-hah because he cannot read it any more than I can after it is two hours cold.
The forced practice has produced a headache for me as this morning I was waited on by four guys who were all mighty belligerent. I mean they all wanted to place the sluggola on me. They wanted to bash out my brains, if any. I mean they were sizzling.
The first one to appear we will call Pat, though his name is really Pete. He had a piece of paper in his hand that he handed to me, saying, truculently:
“What does this mean?”
The paper had obviously been wadded up and smoothed out again and I could not decipher the writing, though it looked familiar.
“Who wrote this?” I asked Pat (in writing).
“You did,” he said, fiercely.
Then it dawned on me that it was indeed my own writing and I read it better.
“Pat is a louse,” the writing said.
I tried to remember when I had written it. It could scarcely have been at the editorial council in Joe Connolly’s office because insects were not discussed, only a few heels. As a matter of fact I did less talking in Joe Connolly’s office than anywhere else in town because when I walked in he had a great big pad of foolscap lying on his desk and I felt insulted. It was a hint that I talk a heap.
It might have been in Lindy’s late at night when I had a meeting with Oscar Levant and Leonard Lyons, but it comes to my mind that we did not get as far down in the alphabet as the P’s. We quit at the O’s because I ran out of pad paper and Lindy commenced to get sore at the way I was working on the backs of his menu cards.
I was busy writing out a denial for Pat when Joe and Ike and Spike, as we will
call them, came barging in and each of them had a crumpled slip, and were so hot that taken jointly you could have barbecued a steer on them. I read one slip that said Mike would rob a church, another stated that Ike would guzzle his grandmamma if he thought it would help him, while there was still another that I would not think of putting in a public print. I did not realize that I knew some of the words.
I think if there had been only one present he would have belted me but the four being there at the same time complicated matters because each one knew the others are copper hollerers or stool pigeons, which is what I had in mind in my writing, and would belch to the bulls if a murder or mayhem came off.
So they finally left muttering they would see me later and I was taught a lesson about leaving written testimony scattered around. However, I think that there is a plot for a great crime story in all this by my favorite mystery writer of the moment Raymond Chandler of Los Angeles. I mean he could have the real killer going about dropping notes that finally land him in the gas chamber at Quentin because Chandler puts all his mysteries in California as if we do not have them in Florida, too.
I notice that whipping out the pad sends most of my acquaintances to searching themselves for their specs and they invariably have some fatuous remark to make about getting old as if I did not know by just looking at them or remembering how long I have known them.
I do not pull the pad and pencil on the dames. I just shake hands and grin idiotically. Most women are near-sighted since infancy and too vain to wear cheaters but why should I embarrass them. Besides not all of them can read.
YOUR NEIGHBOR—THE GAMBLER
“One day it’s milk an’ honey,
Next day haven’t got no money;
Every gamblin’ man he knows
Easy comes and easy goes.
One day you’re a great big winner,
