Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-02-25

him follow 1t UP, In his own time, with
their facilities. So he perfected an alloy
that made q lighter airplane engine
than any one had ever dreamed FEAST
BILE, and sold his patents for cash pay
ment and royalty that staggered him
Peter wasn't at all by way Of being
one Of those ardent and Self-sacrificing
scientists Paul de Kruyf describes so ro-
mantically. He never even thought oil
devoting his leisure and his comparative
wealth to adventurous attempts to con-
quer some of the unknown regions OF
the scientific world. Not he. He quit his
job as soon as he could get his success
scr broken in. and headed for the flesh
pots of Manhattan.
His sister found him an apartment
with q roof terrace and q Filipino boy
to look after it and him, and he &C
quired q wicked looking and absurdly
fast Mercedes roadster for himself. And,
so equipped, he set out TO make up for
lost time.
Plenty of men in Peters case have
ideals like his and mum them as badly
IS he did. For the truth was that after
three months or so of hard, conscien-
tious play he was bored beyond words
He was just about ready to 60 back to
science, his tail between his legs, when
he got to know Martha Thayer.
New York, in 10 years, had grown
clear away from all he had remembered
and missed and longed for during his
term Of exile. He was, 1t happened, that
rare bird, born New Yorker.
In the New York of Peters memories
speakeasieS had not taken the place of
saloons. Prohibition was still something
that people said, with q tolerant laugh,
wouldn't come to pass In their time
just as the same people say, nowadays,
between drinks, that no one now living
will see it repealed. There were still a
great many places to which no man
thought Of taking q nice girl, girl OF
his own sort. Peter remembered how,
during his last Easter vacation, q crowd
had slipped away from Sherry's old
place, the one that's a bank now, and
gone over to the Palais Royal, on Broad
way, which he'd found on his return,
had become q chop suey joint. Paul
Whiteman's Band had been a brand
new sensation there then, and that
crowd had had q thrilling feeling, es-
pecially the girls. that they were doing
something exciting and distinctly dar-
ing.
When Peter came back, he was out Of
step from the first: the pace was too
fast for him, The whole town was
strange and new; It was populated by
strangers, whose very speech was for
eign in his ears. He couldn't grow ac-
customed to finding young girls he'd
seen at midnight at q debutante party
at Pierre's lined up on stools at a speak
easy bar at 4 am swallowing drink for
drink with their boy friends. He felt
as one does who tries to board a NOV
ing trolley car that keeps gathering
speed and dragging him along as he
tries to plant a foot on its running
board.
In a queer, confused way he didn't
have such a bad time. But he was self
conscious; he was what a psyche
analyst would insist on calling inhibited.
People were remarkably nice to him,
considering how little he really had, in
those early weeks to contribute to the
gayety Of an evening; they were amaz-
ingly tolerant Of what he himself felt
was his dumbness. He had, and &C
copied, any number Of invitations. The
trouble was that he didn't know what
to do when he arrived.
Most of the men he'd known in
school and college were married, nat
urally. Their wives we're very nice to
Peter. They asked him to dinner and
took him on, afterward, to parties for
which, of course, since he'd been away
so long, he didn't have cards. But 1t
seemed TO him, people didn't 60 to
parties for their own sake any more.
but rather to n1eetatheir own crowd and
60 on somewhere else-Tex Guinan's,
or the Jungle Club, or Emma's, or, for
that matter, before breakfast, to all
three, and half dozen more like them.
Emma's, that year, was usually the
last port Of call. No one vent there