O. O. McIntyre // Now the exciting moments at grand opera to me are at the intermissions. During the promenade one may get a close-up view of all the rich dowagers that Cholly Knickerbocker and the rest of the society editors write about.
The wife of a Wall Street skinflint who nurses nickels until they scream sweeps along in an ermine coat. Her silver white hair is shot with ruby doo-dads. “Fawncy meetin’ you heah,” she coos to an acquaintance. “I heard you were at the Riviera.” It is difficult to believe that not so many years ago she scrubbed the kitchen floor and packed her husband’s lunch box. One is permitted to rub elbows with those whose names stagger the imagination. What matter if their progenitors sold fish and skunk skins and half soled their breeches with leather? Their descendants are enveloped in the golden aura of wealth. Millionaires mingle with the hoipolloi.
They gather in little groups, puff their panatellas and do a lot of back slapping. It almost seems that at such a moments any of them would be good for a hurry up touch. I wonder. And when the curtain falls and the glittering mass pours out to the waiting limousines on Broadway. Acres of expensive motor cars.
Syndicated column, Jan. 11, 1923
Oddly Social:
