MAYFAIR

Northern Advocate, 16 July 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

MAYFAIR

By GUY RAMSEY in the London '“News Chronicle ”

HE sits perched on a stool at the bar of a great hotel. He is sipping a White Lady. His suit is from Savile How, his shoes trom St. James’s, his tie—Old Etonian —from the Burlington Arcade. His- gleaming car stands outside. He is to lunch at another great hotel; to dine at a third. Casually, patronisingly, he looks round the bar, waves to a. girl in mink, half-rises to greet an elderly man. He tries to look at ease. He calls the barman by hi's Christian name. In his pockets are two five-pound notes, one ten-shilling note, two and threepence in change. There is also, between the fivers, a wad of blank paper cut to the same size. His suit is owed for; his shoes were bought on tick: he has no right to his tie. His car is borrowed. He must not spend his fivers. His ten-shilling note he took last night from the handbag of the womap hg was dancing with. He will nod te the barman, but Ws drink will go on the elderly man’s account, or that of the girl in mink. Do you want to know how he lives? How he looks like ten thousand a year and lives like ten thousand a year when he has between him and the river just twelve and threepence and his wits? Listen. ( * $ ♦ •. At a cocktail party two days ago, he met an opulent but passer- widow. He paid her attention. Yesterday, he rang her up and asked her to dine tonight. This morning, he rang her up again and, said: ‘Tm terribly sorry, but I’ve gqt my dates mixed. A man’s coming to town to dine with me and I can’t put him off. Do you mind if he joins us? I don’t know him very well, but he’s quite nice. 0.K.? At 8.30, then.” - Tonight, he. his friend and the widow will dine. He will order good food, good wine with the air of -one who does it every day. He does. He will be very charming. He is. The widow will begin to think she is not passee at all. She is wrong. He will draw out a ‘‘wad of notes,” pay—with the two genuine fivers —and thrust the blank paper back into his pocket. He will say: “Let's go on to the 999 Club and dance.” As he gets his hat, he. will telephone the club. He will say: “Have my

usual bottle of gin on my usual tabic.” In the taxi, he will say: “The 999 isn’t the Savoy, my dear. I wouldn’t wear that diamond bracelet if I were you.” She gives ft to him to keep for her. He does not have to pay at the club. On the contrary, the club pays him commission on bringing them new members. Ho makes the widow a member on the spot. He gives her a gin and tonic—carefully “needled” so that one gin has the effect of half a bottle. He gives her another. As they leave, he gets into his car and says; "I have to gel out to Essex tonight: George will see you home.” t •* « *• Tomorrow, with a head like nothing on earth, the widow will wake up. An hour later she will remember her bracelet. She will ring him up. He will say: “But don’t you remember? I gave it to you just as George helped you into the taxi.” She asks for “George's” phone number, his But, alas! he. doesn't know it. “P told you I didn't know him well. I’qi terribly sorry.” And the racketeer in the background, who gave him the fivers, who warned him of the widow’s possibilities, and who will give him ten per cent, of the bracelets worth, will carefully enter in his private ledger: ’ Debit. Credit. Entertainment £8 17 6 Bracelet value £ 130 Commission £8 0 0 £l6 17 6 It was a woman who Introduced him to his tailor, a woman he met in the private hotel where he lives. He was “a bit strapped for the mo, old thing. The father was a bit stuffy over the new car!” And Mrs Brown-Jones. who knew he was Lord Reigate’s nephew (for she had not looked him up in Debrett) was delighted to introduce him to her husband’s tailor —while her husband was in the North on business. * * * * If things are bad. and widows arc scarce, he will produce a beautiful story to, some other woman. He is selling a car. It must bo delivered by 5 p.m. But it must be taxed or the deal is off. And he cannot got the fifteen pounds to tax the car: it is too late. And the office closes at 4 p.m. And the woman —if she is “soft”— will give him the £15 —to be repaid.

of course, tomorrow—when the nonexistent car shall have been delivered to the imaginary friend. If the woman is “soppy," she will so tentatively offer him £20 —"to tide you over, my dear boy,” He will take it. Even if she is a bit “tough" she might lend him a quid—"for petrol." * * * * Sometimes he is really broke. The society girl he hoped to seduce and then be “forced" to marry has seen him drunk and (lucky for her) was disgusted. That lost putting him on Easy Street for life —for the family would either have kept him or come down with a heavy settlement if ha had made himself sufficiently unpleasant during the first year of marriage. One day, he gets bored with his hotel. He thinks he will move. For the voice at the end of the hotel telephone is a little sharp. For breakfast, sent up to his room, has dwindled from fish, bacon-and-egg, marmalade to toast and butter. He is three weeks in arrears. See him. then, marching out with his suit over his arm —taking it to bo pressed. Actually, he takes it to a railway station and checks in. He

WHERE MEN LIVE ON THEIR WITS

takes his laundry to “the only li 11 1 > woman who can wash shins in London.” Tiioso arc chocked with the suit. And one night, he doesn't come bade to his hotel at all. They find a suitcase. a pair of socks with holes *.n, and an unpaid bill. He has his sources of information, apart from the financing racketeer who organises his coups and “fences” his thefts. He gossips in the bored, clipped jargon of lire upper class to maitres d'hotol. to waiters, to bartenders. His manners are perfect. He knows what to do and how to do it. He is no gigolo, with whom a woman is ashamed to be seen. If a woman gets a little too pressing about the change from the fiver she gave him to pay the bill at a night club, he will shed his manners like a soiled shirt and tell her just what he thinks of her. He is not very nice to know. There is nothing too dirty for him to touch. He is terribly amusing. He knows such a lot of nice people and he s always to be seen everywhere. He works so hard, just not to do an honest job. He changes his name, oh! so often. In Mayfair, it is—Legion.