Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-10

veHturesses commonly navigate around
among the Capitol committee rooms dressed
exactly that way? You can't know your
little Old Washington then. The Washing
ton play adventures Is a Swapping gorge
Gus creature. with milky skin and Judith
black hair. and she doesn't walk: she Just
osciiiates hither and yon with that long
wavy. sinuous, serpentine stride. When she
observes. gayly. to the worried blocking SEN
| ator t.iat she has only dropped into his
COMMITTEES room for a smoke. you crane a
bit forward, for you know that it's going
to happen. Yes. she's doing IL in the same
old way-lighting her cigarette that is She
produces cleaning gold cigarette case
from somewhere or other-not from her
rompadour, surely. but from some place
and she takes one out, and she walks over
TO the committee room mantel and daintily'
PICKS OUT match that suits her, matches
being so different and then-there's the in
evitable part of it, She leans over. raises
her left foot behind. exhibiting a most fas-
cinating French heel tittivatingly obscurel
IN bImy lace, and she OF course scratches
| the match on that French heel wholly ig-
norlns the scratcher on the side of the box
from which she took the match and then
you catch another little CLEAN of tho
creamy lace as the French neel goes down.
ana there she is with her smoke
she, too, 1t appears. has got a whole raYt
Oh senators and representatives Just about
where she wants en- They're powerless i'm
ner relentless grasp They're mere marion
cites. and when she pulls the strings
they've sure got to dance You think view
ing Inc tremendous clutch that she has
upon them. that it's wonder these old Iev-
lsiators wouldn't behave and not get them
serves SO irrecoverably i'm the cruel power
or these sumptuously beautiful creatures
VINO go ha-ha-ing around their committee
rooms, blowing smoke rings at 'em and or
uering EN- TO vote this way or that. All the
same, you've a sneaking sort of fondness
Tor the adventures in the Washington
pIay-n Tor no other reason than that she
IS SO wholly unlike anything ever seen on
hana h.,
earth. INV
Stage Diplomatists.
The foreign diplomatist. whether ..nn,s.
saoor, minister plenipotentiary or plain at
tache, In the play depicting Washington
me Is generally sort of composite of a
waiter IN a Hungarian table d'hote an
htruri&n bandit i'm tweeds and a Giuseppe
chaperoning hand organ and a monkey
II ne nails from continental Europe he
uanceS around the stage like hen on a hot
rock. cutting geometrical figures in the at
nosphere with his never-resting white
spats, and the gibberish pidgin English
t6at he unreels makes the conversation OF
a newly arrived Slavonic section hand
SOUND IKE pedagogue's English by com
'parison III he's English diplomatist ha
always wears long. dropping, tailowy
is'ustache, upon which he never ceases to
tug, and he's there with a DOrsay drawl
sncn as would infuriate the mildest and
most benevolent Englishman that ever
N
IL Tor two minutes at a stretch These
horribly fascinating attaches in the
washington play are forever pretending
,Sl some grim and sinister purpose not
Ilaue khown to the audience, to be des-
perately in love with the stout and NOT
pai tlcularly attractive maiden sister of
ne representative or senator. In fact,
the attitude of the diplomatist toward All
women is invariably pictured as some
thlng ESSENTIALLY wicked Horribly bad
lot, these foreign diplomatic persons-on
10
| and who don't know anything about the
actua! Washington. when they see these
washington plays. wonder how we Wash
lns .oniahs contriVe to tolerate the pres
| libertines ' 'u'i aseous
The wife of the senator or representa-
I'VE is usually shown in the Washington
play as a fat. bulgy, breezy waddlinv
uowager clad in all the hues of the ram
pow with twisted. crazy bonnets, with a
hilariousiy funny way of misapplying com
mon words and Jim Bludsoe patois Her
one ambition in ife-Washington life
appears to be to make the first lady Of
the land-i. e., the White House adv
anna, IKE social piker and to marry her
naccA ana unresisting pinheads OF daugh-
ters > congressmens daughters in Wash
lngton plays are always pinheads-to docks
anu ViZzcounts and markees and SIGH like
Dissipated Private Secretaries.
Inc senator's or representatives private
secretary in the Washington play is infal-
| libby exhibited in the act of getting drunk
or recovering from a drunk of the preyious
night. He's eitheraigot katzenjammerr or.
paving the way for it. He's a sportv-loolt.
ing chap, in natty covert coat who is all
ways in love with the senator's or repre.
sentative's daughter-the. comedy ineeuue
oaGghter,but who never appears to get
Su1nc-ently sobered up to tell her so or 10
make any real effort to cut out the docks
and markeezes and things who are irvine
TO steal the comedy daughters young at.
| lections You wonder how these congress
| sionai private secretaries ever contrive to
90 lick of work for their bosses. with all
OF that rum percolating through and leak
| ing from their systems
The private secretary knows all about
| his senator's or Representatives. most int,
mate affairs. some of them pretty shady.
at that, but, picked as he Is most of tho
time, ne never peaches and is never pumped
oy the opposltion-he always has enough
sense to keep his head closed at these
critical junctures. But all the same the
private secretary of the Washington play
is such an astounding, Brobdingnag ian Joke
that suTe-enough private secretaries of con-
gressional folks who have seen him on the
stage have been known to go into absolute
Mysteries of laughter over him.
The "journalist"-i.e., newspaper man
in the play depicting Washington life is a
Chuck Conners-looking chap in gigantic
checked clothes. who hands the presiding
officer of the Senate wailop on the back
and calls him Pete who hides In com
mittee room cubby holes in order to over
hear the talk between the lobbyist and the
legislator. who talks about scoops" and
beats" without intermission. who chucks
all of the typewriter girls under their cute
little chins and calls 'em ''tweet" and cum
MIN" and who. in general. is the most UNI
miugated Shine" and the most hopeless
ass of the entire performance.
In addition to the foregoing, there are
others-several of them. But these are
enough. 1t is delightful to think that we
are probably going to see EN- all over
again. with three of "our leading drama
lists engaged upon plays depicting Wash
ington life CLARENCE L. CULLEN.
Truth About the pianists.