The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-07-11
:" We've FlndIng Out Hoz0
 7he R1ch Habf LiUe'
BY IRWIN s. COBB.

nlgh cooling drinks and nights In venice,
 with a bun on.
 suing for divorce will bring out so many
 interesting private facts about people
 with money. For years a society couple
 have gone along without attracting much
 attention anywhere except in the tax
 office. The husband has S11, ,000.0O0 which he inherited, and wears size five and three-quarters hat. The wife appears at
 the opera looking like she'd just come out
 of the hands of Tiffany's head window
 dresser, but is otherwise not particularly
 noticeable among lot of ladies who'd be
 regarded as under-dressed if they ven
 tured out wearing a diamond stomacher
 that weighed less than nine pounds.
 Their yacht is a plain three-story and
 Englihs basement yacht with a crew of
 only 90 men and no all-night elevator
 service. Their summer home is merely
 a simple little two million dollar estate,
 with one private ocean attached, and they have but three town houses to their
 name. In fact you might say they are
 not conspicuous in any way In the gay life.
 But all of sudden along comes the
 grand slam. A seemingly quiet and un- ostentatious household Is abruptly dis rupted. The wife retains one of our most criminal lawyers to defend her rights;
 the husband hires a prominent legal per
 son with the reputation of being very oross- s-examiner, to represent him, and pretty soon a great divorce trial, one of
 which is deeply regretted and highly popular in all walks of life, has been
 started before a light sleeper in a black
 silk kimona, called judge. The papers are very sorry about the deplorable affair
 on the editorial page and very glad about 1t on all the other pages; the family ser jnfn md if with such freedom that I make up my mind If ever I should have a million dol lars and temperamental lady wife, I'll live in a safety vault and do my own housework; all the leading authorities suitable to such a case are quoted, from Dun's Agency to the Barkeepers Guide, and the great truth is brought home to us that in the gilded palace full of Louie Kahn's furniture, even as in the humble cot, in the midst of luxury and ease and flunkeys with plush pants and foolish faces, there's liable to be constantly rising temperature and hard squalls whenever you've got the combination of a gent who has about one consecutive thought every change of the moon and a
 lady whose deeply emotional nature in- c1ines her to come down to breakfast of morning and pass the Spanish omelet, with fine herbs, across the orchid center piece into her husbands abashed bosom, then burst into tears and sweep from the room in high dudgeon."
 ''Wots a high dudgeon," asked the House Detective, breaking in.
 Its the thing that a society lady so frequently sweeps from the room In, when her disposition begins to clabber," explained the Hotel Clerk. q never saw one myself, although I have a friend a special writer who raises 'em for the so- ciety trade and uses at least one in nearly every story he writes. But whatever a dudgeon may or may not be, whether it's hairy or slick and whether 1t buttons up
 the back or hooks down the front with hooks and eyes I'll say this much The last prominent lady that took her troubles into court would never sweep from a room in any style dudgeon except a high one. The proof showed that her taste always ran to things that were high, ] from jewelry to temper. The higher the better. Also the frequenter Hence as say advisedly the high dudgeon. Anyway, they get divorce and mar | " again, being as you might say, beggars | for punishment, or else they do not get I a divorce and have to struggle along with the present encumbents awhile ! longer, until something better turns up, each of course retaining the option of | picking out sympathetic natures for
 
 | town"
 Well the divorce evil certainly has l growed accordin' to what the papers say" gloomed the House Detective. .fYou don't hear these times of any more of
 them old time golden weddin' celebra- | tions.
 That's easy to explain" said the Hotel Clerk. "A young chap who wasn't born a gf1 l,. It hasn't since been apt to get much of the same material into his pockets at any one
 given time. marries girl whose only oower Is working acquaintance with a cook stove. Well, their first anniyer- sary is the installment furniture wedding. and the next is the balbriggan under wear wedding, and after that there comes | along the amalgam filings wedding and the new-tin-roof-for- e-kitchen wedding | and the first-and-second mortgage we'd | ding and the-sending-the-bo boy-off- -to-col- | lege wedding and by the time for the I golden wedding celebration rolls around | the couple have worked themselves into honorable but comparative obscure graves. | or else they'll be perfectly satisfied to | receive their golden gifts in the shape | Of little 14-caret decorating on the new set of rubber and chinawear teeth that | the dentist Is making for their reclining years. That goes for the middle classes
 Larry. The very rich change partners and their luck so often that the only way I know of for them to celebrate a { golden wedding would be for the lady to wait until the grand total of her mar ried lives mounted up to the right figure and then invite all her ex-husbands to | attend family-reunion to be somewhere outdoors" where there'd be room. well, said the House Detective phil- osophically, one half the world don't know how the other half lives Does tt?" well be in a fair way to find ont if the courts stay open and the family ser wants continue to take the witness stand" said the Hotel Clerk