By O. O. McIntyre //
The passion for publicity in New York carries its seekers into strange paths. It is a fashion now for men seeking the white hot glare deftly to engineer public dinners for themselves and then stand feigning breathless surprise when brought to the festal board. Three such diners have been given this winter. For one the “guest of honor” bought 259 tickets. He sat tugging a vagrant lock, surcharged with artistic absent mindedness while paens of praise fell from forensic lips.
When called upon the reply to the toasts of the evening he came out of the nebulous nether and groped his way back to the cosmic snarl with halting phrases. It was, as the actor would say, “a great bit of trouping.” He could not understand why all this fuss had been made about one so unimportant. Scalding tears trickled down his cheeks. And many of those puffed with the privilege of paying $10.50 a ticket went away feeling a new admiration for this gentle, unaffected artistic soul, so modest, so shy and a couple of et ceteras.
It is the New York way to beam over being bunked. The “We Boys” who used to clutter up the Peacock Alleys of the gilded hotels found their easiest pluckings among those who feigned timidity in public yet fairly leaped to the check book to pay for a thousand dollar write up in some “volume of notables.” Buttons, or bell boys as they used to be known, fatten on this odd trait of New Yorkers. They get greenbacks for going through dining rooms paging the name of someone who takes this means of letting people know he is on earth. Stage stars send themselves all sorts of telegrams and flowers on opening nights. Social queens have professional puffers who are called “secretaries.” So big is the city that life for the rich is a series of scrambles to be noticed.
Oddly Social:
