The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1923-01-26
WAITER HONORS
TWENTY RICH
FRIENDS
Announces He Will Be Unable
to Continue Expensive
Annual Dinner.
BY WARD GREENE.
Coamnnnlifan Nave Service.

Cosmopolitan News service.
NEW YORK, Jan. 26.-Twenty
rich gourmets dined last night in an
obscure walters home and woke this
morning to shatter another illusion
that all New York walters retire at
fifty on the income from invested
tips.
Meet the one exception-"Louis"-
| for twenty-six years a waiter at the
famous old Hotel Brevoort; host last
night to his favorite patrons at an
eighteen-course dinner in a little cot
tage on Mercer street.
The dinner is an annual affair.
Louis cooks it. His sister serves it.
The menu begins with ravioli and
ends with rum pie. And, for the
only time during the year, Louis sits
among his guests as a friend and
equal and tells them of the time he
lighted Alfred Vanderbilt's perfecto
and splashed bit of Rhine wine on
the King of England, then touring
America as Prince of Wales.
Two Wall Street bankers, a cele-
brated prina donna, three success
full novelists, half dozen naughty
Fifth avenue blue-bookers and
S several internationally known
painters were among Louis guests
last night. And, when coffee finsl-
ly came, Louis rose with tears in
his eyes, and said:
my friends, this is my last din.
ner in your honor. These dinners
they are not so expensive. But
my sister will tell you'll am not
rich man. have not saved my
money. And it is better, perhaps,
that after this you will know me
only as Louis, the waiter"
don't know whether Louis il a
very clever fellow or just a gray:
broken old man. But I do know
this-last nights dinner will not
be his last. Trust the twenty
gourmets for that.
How the upper half lives-We OBJ
served a gentleman in a fur coat
and a hunted expression leading a
poodle dog on leach up and down
fashionable Park avenue this morn
ing.
How the lower half lives-We OBJ
served the elevator man in our
building comfortably snoring in a
chair last night while forty scrub
women banged and sloshed and
sweated high above his dreams.
New York has new ailment for
Coue to cure-'Radio ears" They
are not unlike the prize fighters
| "cauliflower ear" except they are
caused by the head phones OF a
radio set instead of Jack Dempsey
punches.
DR.. Paul Won Boeckman, once
champion wrestler Of America,
showed me. his last night. Just
above the opening in the ear. where
the "ear flaps" so to speak. bend
back, grew a hard little ridge like
a corn on the toe.
eft was very painful for a time"
said Won Boeckman, ''but was so
crazy about my radio set I couldn't
stop tuning in. And then the raw
places got hard like this"
AL Davis, the dancer and racing
man, ex-husband Of Eugenia Kelly
Of New York's 400" seems to have
succeeded the late Jackson Gouraud
as the Beau Mash of Broadway. AL
is a slick dresser-in the minds, at
least, of the bloods whose day
never starts till the electrics
twinkle over Longacre Square and
whose night never ends till the last
all-night cabaret closes.
Jackson Gouraud's pet fashion
sceptre was his amber cigarette
case. During his reign as the
bizarre Anne Croker Gouraud's
third-or was it fourth husband
he used to stroll into his tobaccon-
lists, chatting with friends, back UP
to the counter with his head high
in the air, extend his cigarette case
with A languid hand over his left
shoulder, receive it back full from
an obsequious clerk, and walk out,
still chatting without ever looking
at the mental.
AL Davis must have seen Jackson
do that. For they say he tried the
| same tactics yesterday in a shop
across from the Astor-only his
| cigarette case was jeweled with
rubies to match his ring and his
scarfpin. Al should have looked at
the clerk first. though. for the clerk
was new on the job. AS the Jew
eled cigarette case was extended to
him, he overcome his establishment,
accepted it gratefully, and re.
marked:
Tanks, buddy. What brand you
advertising?"