New Britain herald., 1927-02-15
mo matter how many awful things

"Infatuation. Youn get ,ve
 it!" Lottie snapped her fingers, m
 stood up, craning her neck to pee
 over the hedge. There's the de
 livery boy from Arlette's. Com
 along in. and I'll show you som things I bought the other day"
 Now, "Arlette's" is the mos swank shop on Hollywood boule yard. for certain things. It is /, beauty shop. Not an ordinar. beauty shop. put a regular institu ton where double chins and roll ing hips are sweated away il steam cabinets-where drab hair i transformed to gleaming gold o' to satiny black-where chins ar, lifted and crows feet are irone' out by the surgeons knife. Where that same knife makes Cupid 8 bow lips and dimples in cheeks where no dirnples ever grew before.
 And 1t was to Arlette's that Lot. tie Schultz had gone for some o1 the feminine Vaccinations she nae always spurned and despised until row.
 The things she had bought GOV cred the big double bed in her loom when she took them out of their boxes and paper wrappings Chin straps, liquid rouges, paste rouges, dry compact rougas, eye brow pencils, dark cream powder for daytime, lavender and green powder for evening. Perfume in tall slender bottles, little squatty bottles. A big gold-plated vanity case fitted with mirror, lipstick, powder--all the things that Lottie bad scorncd. All the things hat never had seemed to matter to her before. safe and secure as Roy Schultz's wife.
 They mattered to her terribly now.
 Robbie could see that by her mar rowed eyes, and her puckered lips as she thoughtfully looked them over, one by one. By the way. she sniffed the perfumes in their fancy glass bottles. By the way she looked in the glass and smeared enc check with pale-rose rouge, and the other one with deep sal mon pink.
 Like most of the other women in the world. in this day and age, Lottie had come to tito the paint ing, the powdering and the putting cn and wiping off of cold cream! To the primping and crimping and scenting and dieting and exercis- ing! To the beautifying Of the body and the forgetfulness of the soul.
 I'm going to take off ten pounds while Roy's in Laguna," she said 10 Robbie.
 And she said it the way her m other might have said: I'm going to clean the attic and all the clothes closets next week." It was her job, and she was going to do it!
 She was going to hold her own against all the big-cycd. soft-bodied little flappers, who besot Roy pathway. or she'd know the reason why. po-or-die was writ ten in every line of her plain, curi- ously attractive face.
 Robbie, herself made firm reso- lution that day.
 She made it on the way home that afternoon, walking along Holly wood boulevard. She made up her mind to live like a Chinese coolie for the next few weeks, save prac- tically all of the money she made teaching Jolly. and then seriously try to get a fairly decent part in a picture.
 The thing back of that resolution was nothing more than can Of coffee.
 It stood on a shelf in the market where she stopped 10 buy some food for her supper. It contained the kind of powdered coffee that does not need to be put into a pot pnd boiled, but simply stirred into q cup of hot water like sugar. It would last twice as long as ordinary coffee, so tho grocery clerk said.
 "I'H take it," said Robbie, who vas trying to buy something large and cheap that day
 She bought two boxes of soda crackers. and a jar of peanut but ter, too. Cheap and filling - ex- tremely.
 She took them home, and sat down by her window, using the sill for a supper table.
 Like nine women out of ten, she could never relax unless she was in kimono and bedroom slippers.
 AS she sat there, idly watching the sun drop down over the purple bills above the town, munching the crackers, and feeling comfortably unhappy because Gus had been so bAstly about Laguna. knock came on the door.
 Fortunately 1t was locked. Bob bic hid her glass tumbler of cof- fee and her peanut -buttered crack rrs under the bed and opened the door to Mrs. Mangan.
 Now, Mrs. Mangan did not allow people to have food in the bedroom of her adored house. It brought mice, so she said, and ants-not to mention cockroaches and other pests.
 And so, when the appetizing smell of peanut butter and coffee ! cached her rather large nostrils they grew larger than ever. So did her eyes.
 "I hope you're not cooking in here" she said sniffing and glar- ing around the room.
 "No, indced," Robbie answered with perfect truth, T was just 
 Mrs. Mangan's face cleared. She came forward into the pretty spot less room, holding a newspaper in her hand.
 "Weu. this house certainly has