The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-05

from my old friend, the Secretary of Agriculture of Louisiana. My wife, a neighborly soul, shares it with Mrs. Pegues, on the next street. Dr. Pegues, professor of English comes from North Caro- lima and Texas. His eyes shine when he scents real southern syrup Chatting with Mike Hughes, the patrolman on our beat, I learn that Killer Monk, the police dog that nearly murdered our Captain Kidd, is acquiring a bad reputation, and may be dis ciplined by police order.
 Several have written, rebuking me for permitting Captain Kidd to go about muzzled while the dog that chewed him up roams the hills unmuzzled. Some few have even intimated that I shouldn't own a dog if I can't protect him.
 These well-meaning correspon- dents don't realize that the Cap tain wears muzzle by special or der of a police court. He nipped a paper delivery boy, very slight ly, a year or so ago, when the boy, crazed by fear, swung his pa- per bag at him and yelled. I was summoned to court and lectured by kindly Judge Boote. Although I defended the Captain to the best of my ability, was required thenceforth to nnuzzle the dog whenever he was at large.
 Mike Hughes is dog loving policeman, but there are some who would shoot our Captain at sight if he were unmuzzled. The owners of Monk simply refuse to muzzle him. Now, what would my kind advisors do in those cir cumstances?
 The Dutch Treat club, where hundreds of writers, actors, ar- tists and men of allied occupations meet once a week to talk and lis- ten, has missed its genially sar- castle president, Clarence Buding- ton Kelland, during the present winter. Kelland, who has al- ways been head of the club and cant get rid of the office by re- signing, went to Arizona. He liked the climate so well that he stayed, built a home, does his writing there.
 Kelland communicates with the club by wire and letter, but won't promise when he'll come back and preside at meetings. The presid- ing job is passed around now. Ray Vir Din. advertising man, and Harry Hansen, book critic, do ex- cellent work, introducing speakers and singers. The job isn't easy. Dutch Treaters feel free to in- terrupt and keckle the presiding officer when they think he's not doing very well.
 Jack Raper, Cleveland humorist, dropped in to visit at my Times Square workshop lately. He had been taking the first rest he's had in the approximately 35 years he's been running a column in a Cleveland newspaper. He and I once occupied the same little of- flee.
 Because of a bad cold that wouldn't go away, Jack dropped his work, came to New York. One Sunday he had an appointment to have lunch with the Jake Oman sky's at their Park avenue apart ment. He arrived at lunch time, to learn that Jake, his old friend and mine, had died suddenly few minutes earlier. That kind of shock doesn't help one back on ones feet, either.
 This winter is a notable one
 for very severe colds, often run ming into pneumonia, in New York. Among my personal friends, Fred Knowles, Jed Riley, Frank Markey, Bill Lengel, Frazier Hunt, Bob McNitt, Rennie McEvoy, Mrs McEvoy and Dr. Thompson Sweeney have all suffered severe ly within the month. The cold seems much more virulent than the ones we used to know, and yet is hardly the influenza that hit the town during the World War and many times since. I'm having a tuSsle with it myself now. You'll know what I mean when I say these typewriter keys have some fiendish magic that causes them to hit my ear-drums instead of the paper. Q.
 Miss Ethel Hood. rising young sculptor from Pittsburgh, is ex- hibiting some of her heads and figures at the Decorators Club, in the Squibb building, on Fifth avenue. There's notable bronze head of a young boy that strikes my fancy. Miss Hood is now do- ing a head of the.handsome Eng fish actor, Maurice Evans, who is still astounding Broadway with his long staple Hamlet. Evans might impersonate Apollo without being detected on Mount Olympus so Miss Hood is almost sure to add another masterpiece to her collection.
 Elegant manners get more cus- toners for manicure girls than loud talk and splashy makeup. At least it's so in Times Square, &C., cording to Frank, the barber. "The girls that talk loud about the beaux they've been out with are kidding themselves, but nobody else" he told me, confidentially, today.
 Copyright, 1889, McNaught
 Syndicate)
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