San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1924-03-23
THE MARRIED LIFE.
of
HELEN AND WARREN
WARRENS STIMULATING AFTER DINNER SPEECH
COME OFF AS SCHEDULED
By Mabel Herbert Urner

Take more'n a squint to mar my
style of beauty" he grinned.
An explosive flash, cloud OF
smoke, and again The buzz of voices.
The senator not troubling to talk
to her, Helen was free to appraise the
other diners. Twenty tables of the
Snug, well-dressed Civic Club crowd.
The dinner now in progress, the
Cape Gods were followed by green
turtle soup. Not the usual weak.
tepid fluid Of public fuctions, but a
thick broth with the twang of real
turtle.
Hello, you don't often get brook
trout at these talk-fests." Warren
greeted the fish course. Were play
ing in luck tonight"
Il understand we're TO get good
dinner" the senator leaned across
Helen. Wagner saw the chef and
slipped him good fat tip"
But, dear. you know you musta't
eat MUCH whispered Helen.
swell, I'm not going to pass this
np." dispatching the trout meuniere.
The entree. praised sweetbreads. and
the roast guinea hen, were equally de-
lic!ous. Relen's restraining nudges
became more insistent.
The endive cheese-dressed salad was
followed by tall goblets of maroon
glace.
That's SO rich! Dear, don't eat
much OF it. And none of those cakes"
all in guarded undertone. "Now
have You got it straight in your
mind? You know just what you're 60
ing TO say!'
''Oh, tune off. Let me finish my
dinner in peace
Eyes, drink all your coffee" when
that was served. 1T clears the
BRAIN"
1t was just nine-thirty when the
chairman introduced the first speak
er.
A typical after.dinner talker, his eff
fusive tributes to MIR. Gregory flowed
with facile, flowery phrases. Exceed
ing his allotted ten minutes, he wound
up with a rhetorical encomium, and
sat down amid dutiful applause.
Tense with expectation. Helen twist
Cd her Uekin. Would Warren be
next?
A few facetious remarks from the
chairman. and the second speaker, Mr..
Walter Rodman. was introduced.
His studied slangy, good fellow"
speech, interlarded with funny"
stories. Helen hardly heard. Warren
would be next, she felt sure.
Surreptitiously she powdered her
face. flushed from her nervous anxiety,
Hes talking from notes." she whis.
pered. Dear. make some on the
back of this" turning over the souve-
mir menu. "Jot down your main
points,"
Spurred by her intensity, Warren
scrawled few notes, while Mr.. Rod
man bubbled on with his carefully re-
hearsed "extemporaneous" humor.
Again the chairman's witticisms be-
fore announcing the next speaker.
Again Helen's throbbing expectation
was causeless, for Senator Palaver
was now introduced.
With "spread-eagle" oratory, his
eulogistic garrulity fairly overwhelmed
Mr.. Gregory.
Words. words! Torrents Of bom-
bastic. flag-waving phrases. Lauda-
tory. flights of sonorous vOlubility. A
prolixity of words with a paucity of
ideas. s-a 500 A,tt- s0
His ten minutes long past, he
doomed on with no sign of the end.
Several times he paused to mop his
heated badness, and once to wet his
flaccid lips from the glass that Helen
had prudently moved back from mis-
table-pounding fist.
After exhausting his laudations TO
the guest of honor, he plunged into g
general review Of American history,
pledging his support to the "Constitu-
tion-that Unimpeachable Bulwark of
Our Liberties" From this eminenc,
he Numbered into a dissertation on
world conditions.
His audience was growing FESTIVE
coughing, shifting chairs and feet. Blu
ignoring these polite intimations, his
pleonastic verbosity continued.
And his laboriously dragged in jokes