Tag: 1933 Page 1 of 5

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, November 25, 1933.

“Sometimes,” said Jimmie Frise, “I think you are a Communist.”

“Far from it,” I said. “I’m a Naturalist. It’s a new party, and I’m the president of it and all the members.”

“What does it stand for?” asked Jim.

“Well, we want everything divided up in such a way that nobody can get too much, and everybody can have some. But we don’t want any changes in men.”

“How do you mean no changes in men?”

“All the other reform parties,” I said, “want everything changed, but most of all they want to change men. The Communists want all mankind to destroy their private ambitions so that there is no ambition but the State’s. The Socialists want all men to be born with the idea that nothing matters but the welfare of society. The less advanced reformers offer us all kinds of good things, but also want men to be good, too. They want men to be like geometrical designs. Workers, spiritual, pious, modernized, mechanized, without any bad habits. Just doomed to a strictly sanitary, safe, sensible, eight-hour day, organized, tame, the kind of life you can see in the advertisements in a United States children’s magazine.”

“I hope you are not scoffing at modern life,” said Jimmie.

“Mercy, no!” I said. “But us Naturalists want the changes without changing men. We have the funny idea that you can’t change men anyway. Reorganize business and industry so as to put a sane limit on the wolfish-impulse of some of us, just the way you would put a collar and leash on the larger and lively dogs. But don’t muzzle all the pooches in all creation.”

“That’s a good line,” said Jim. “Why don’t you go into politics?”

“I will consult the party,” I said. “But we Naturalists don’t believe in politics. We want all men to be Grits and Tories and all kinds of radicals, and have a good time. We want them to be natural. The Naturalist party plans to give the world all the benefits the Tories, Grits and Communists offer, without demanding any change in themselves whatsoever. They can still be greedy and selfish, mean and lousy, happy and lazy, hard-working and ambitious, dull and stupid, and we’ll guarantee that no harm can come to them. We assert the right of all men to be natural. To establish that right, we are going to topple over all tyrants who prevent men from eating, because eating is the most natural thing on earth.”

Reforming the Other Fellow

“Excuse me,” said Jim, “but how will you handle the sincere reformers?”

“It is natural for some men,” I said, “to want to reform their fellow-men.”

“Correct,” said Jim.

“And it is natural for other men to want to be reformed.”

“Exactly,” said Jim.

“So we’ll let them amuse each other,” I said. “What we Naturalists deny is the right of anybody to reform us if we don’t want to be reformed.”

“How about murderers?” asked Jim. “They naturally want to murder.”

“And the rest of us naturally want to hang them, so that’s all right.”

“I see,” said Jim.

“We can get a lot of improvements,” I said, “without trying to improve men. That’s where we are all stuck to-day. All our schemes fall down because we won’t let nature alone. It’s like cows. Over a couple of centuries, we have made a lot of improvement in cows. We are getting a lot of milk from them and a lot more beef. But you start trying to tinker with the intelligence of cows and see where you get.”

Jim and I were sitting, during this brilliant conversation, on the window sill of a store over on Parliament St. This is a habit Jim and I have brought to the big city with us from the small village where we were born and raised.¹ Every village has large numbers of wide window sills on its stores for the public to sit on. But in the whole of Toronto, Jimmie and I have found only two. And when we are feeling a little depressed, we always go and sit on one or the other of these store window sills. If you know of any others, we would be glad to add them to our list of good sitting places.

As we reached this point in our conversation, a well-dressed man walked rapidly past us, down Parliament St. He had a derby hat and a gray coat and gloves. He walked with a purposeful stride.

“How far would you get,” asked Jim, quietly, “with that guy with all this Naturalist stuff?”

“He’s perfectly happy,” I said. “Leave him alone.”

“What would you say he was?” asked Jim, as the tall, tidy figure swung down the street from us, full of vim, heading resolutely for some place, with purpose written all over him.

“I’d say he was a young executive in a trust company,” I suggested.

“Or an insurance man,” said Jim. “Let’s follow him and see where he goes.”

We rose off the window sill and started down Parliament St. after the stranger.

“This is interesting,” I exclaimed, as we lengthened our pace to keep him in sight. “Following a busy man and seeing what impels him on his way.”

Down Parliament to Queen we marched, and he turned along Queen, on the north side, looking neither to the right nor the left, but striding with the air of a man walking for his health’s sake, and with a definite program in his mind.

Past homely little stores, factories, warehouse, and we came to Sherbourne, which he crossed, still on the north side. A few doors along was a cigar store with a great variety of English tobacco in the window, and our man halted abruptly, and stood so long looking in the window that Jim and I had to walk back and forward the distance between two hydro poles before he suddenly turned and marched westward again on Queen, looking neither to the right nor the left.

Suddenly he veered and crossed the road. We followed. He stopped in front of a shoe repair shop in which there was only a few laces, a couple of new knives with curled blades and some spools of heavy linen for sewing shoes.

For three whole minutes he stood looking at these objects.

On again he marched, past Church St., past a great big store full of bicycles and motorcycles and wrenches and headlamps, where I would love to have dallied a moment, but right past Victoria he strode, and then crossed at Yonge to the north side and into a store he disappeared.

“What the dickens is he?” I asked.

Jim led me on and we saw him vanish down the basement stairs of the store. It was no trick to follow him down there, because he slowly wandered up one aisle and down the other, his gloved hands behind him, looking with intense interest at compartments full of screws and nails, hooks for screen doors, files, hinges. Plates, breadboards, trowels for picking up slices of pie. Paper lamp shades. Rolls of wire.

With slow, intense interest, he walked completely around the basement, looking at every single bin, and stopping to stare at many of them.

Then with resolution written all over him, he made for the stairs, and threaded his way rapidly out of that store and entered another nearby.

“This has got me beat,” I said.

But Jimmie just grinned and led me after him.

Straight through this second store, past the shirts, the sweaters, the hats, through the motor accessories and the sporting goods, out past the cameras and the perfumes, he strode, and suddenly he stopped at the soap. The soap is a whole section. Slowly, pace by pace, hands clasped behind him, he walked, head forward, carefully studying every foot of soap. He paused at some scented and warped cakes. He paused again at a pile of bars of castile like a log chimney. He went right around. the section, taking all of five minutes to examine each item.

“He’s off!” hissed Jim.

The End of the Chase

And away we galloped, in his wake, as he made his way rapidly and resolutely toward the doors.

And now he marched into still another store. Past the tobacco, past the stationery and the diaries, past the aisle circles where the pretty girls sell stockings and beads, right past the love birds, clean through the bulbs of hyacinth and tulip, down past the umbrellas and walking sticks, through the books. with never a glance to the glittering piles of literature, he advanced, and stopped in front of the elevators.

We caught up with him. We stopped for the elevator too.

It arrived. We got in. We rose to the second floor.

Out he stopped, smartly. We followed.

Past towels and tablecloths, linens and sheets he sped, and suddenly halted in the midst of the blankets. With the same head-thrust-forward air of fascination, he walked slowly amidst the blankets, looking long at the soft white ones, halting reverently before the colored and striped ones, spending so long amidst the motor rugs that a clerk came forward. But he merely shook his head.

Then, like a war horse, up came his head and he marched for the down escalator which we took behind him. Past the shirts and the underwear he made for the door. We followed him.

“Probably,” I said, “his wife was talking about getting some new blankets.”

“And soap,” said Jim.

“The chase will soon be over,” I said, “for he’ll likely duck into one of these skyscrapers.”

“And we’ll follow him,” said Jim. “I’ll bet he is an advertising man.”

“Or a broker,” I said.

“We’ll follow him right to his desk,” said Jim. “He’s got me excited.”

But on down Bay he led us, past the tall buildings one after another.

“Heading for the broker belt,” hissed Jim. He turned into a restaurant.

“Aw,” I said.

On his heels we followed.

As he came into the restaurant, there were half a dozen bright-looking young fellows gathered about the whiffle board.²

The whiffle board is a children’s game. which is played by shooting marbles up a sloping board and seeing what holes they drop into. The holes are numbered from ten to three hundred.

“Hello, boys,” cried our man gaily.

“Hello, George!” cried the gang.

The young executive took off his gloves and put them in his pocket.

He unbuttoned his overcoat. Tilted his derby back on his head.

And then, with a smile of pleasure all over his long, clever, happy face, he stepped up to the whiffleboard and joined the group around it.

Hurrying Nowhere

Jim and I went over and sat down and ordered coffee.

“So what?” said Jim.

“Hurrying nowhere,” I said.

“They look like a nice bunch of lads,” said Jim. “Let’s go up and join them and find out what that man does. I hate to quit now.”

“No,” I said. “I’d rather not know what he does now.”

“Why not?”

“Because he fits so perfectly into the Naturalist theory,” I said. “I bet you if you could follow every man for one day of his life, you would discover the most astonishing things. The tiny things he is interested in. The hours he spends in idleness, or what appears to be idleness to other eyes. The small childishness of our day, and how resolute and purposeful we are about it!”

“I can see it,” said Jim, tenderly. “Follow every man from the time he gets up until he goes to bed, and you don’t meet up much with his beliefs or politics. There isn’t much pattern to his day, although there may be a pattern to his life.”

“Just a natural man,” I said.

One of the young men at the whiffle board walked over toward us. He had left his hat hanging on the coat hook beside our table. As he reached up for it he smiled at us and called me by name, although I did not recognize him.

“Oh,” I said quietly, at this fortunate circumstance, “we were wondering about that man there with the gray coat. The one who came in just a couple of minutes ago.”

“Yes? said the young man.

“Er – what business is he in?” I asked.

“Well, as a matter of fact, he isn’t in any business,” said the young man, leaning down confidentially. “He has been out of work for over a year.”

“Oh, dear.”

“In fact, he is nearly crazy over it,” went on the young man.

“Mm-mm,” said Jim and I.

The young chap nodded and left us. “How about enlisting him in the Naturalist party?” asked Jim.

“All the time we were following him,” I said aimlessly.

“Anyway, how about letting me join your party?” said Jimmie.

“Nope,” I said sadly, “it’s a one-man party.”

Which shows you that there is a lot of thinking going on in various places, but not much action.

Editor’s Notes: This is one of their earlier stories, and it feels like they were still trying to work out the formula.

1. This makes the point that this was an earlier story. Greg would not imply that he was from a small town later. This was a fabrication too. ↩︎
2. Whiffle Boards were the precursors to the pinball machine. This seems to be early in their development as the linked article indicates that they were only invented 2 years previously in 1931. ↩︎

Warning: This story uses a derogatory term in describing a maid. It is being left in as it is not being used in a hurtful manner.

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, September 30, 1933.

“This country,” said Jimmie Frise, “needs a Brain Trust.¹“

“Well then,” I said.

“I’m ready to offer myself any time, if you are,” went on Jimmie.

“What could we offer?” I asked scornfully.

“We could offer them everything,” said Jim. “Our brains have practically never been used. The trouble these days is worn-out brains. The people running the world are exhausted.”

“What would be your program, Mr. Frise?” I asked, just like Mr. Knowles interviewing the Duke of Pawtucket.

“My program,” said Jimmie, “would be to order all the unemployed to go back to work where they worked last. On Monday morning next, every living man would report at his last place of employment.”

“And,” I said.

“And the employers would be obliged by law, under pain of death, to take those men back to work.”

“It sounds simple,” I said.

“And everybody who didn’t report back to work, would be shot at sunrise,” said Jim.

“You have a Bloodthirsty brain,” I said. “But how would you pay all these extra workers?”

“That is a problem I wouldn’t have to work out until the Friday following,” said Jim. “The main thing is to get everybody back to work.”

“What good would that be?” I asked. “They tell me the trouble with the world is that we are producing too much. If you put everybody to work, you’d flood the world with goods inside a month and then we’d all be out.”

“My plan,” said Jimmie, “which will be known to posterity as the Frise Plan, or F. P. for short, is not to have a few people working too much, the way it is now, but to have everybody working too little.”

“Oh, boy,” I breathed.

“Yes, sir,” said Jimmie, warming up, “under the Frise Plan, it will be a break of the by-laws not to work. But it will be a criminal offence to work too hard. What the world is yearning for is the happy man.”

“It’s revolutionary, Jim,” I exclaimed.

“It’s common sense,” retorted Jimmie. “The mass of mankind is a nice, stupid, easy going class of people like you and me. But we are imposed upon by a small group of clever, hard-working, ambitious and high-minded people. They set us a pace nobody can follow. The thing to do is to eliminate those clever, hard-working people.”

“How?” I asked weakly.

“By jailing them,” said Jim, “unless they can control themselves, and just be average.”

“You are, reversing the principles that have prevailed since the dawn of history,” I protested.

“It’s time they were reversed,” said Jim. “Mankind is sick and tired of trying to keep up with the smart boys. It’s time we called a halt and put the smart boys where they belong. I don’t mind a smart fellow like a Henry Ford or a John D. Rockefeller being as smart as he likes so long as he doesn’t try to improve the human race. That’s where all the damage comes in. Under the Frise Plan, all inventors will be chloroformed.”

“Jimmie!” I cried, shocked.

“Yes, sir,” said Jim, “I’m going to launch it. The Frise Plan. Everybody working. Nobody working hard. And jail for the man that produces too much.”

“You can’t defeat human nature,” I argued.

“Human nature is defeated,” cried Jimmie. “That’s the trouble. Human nature is lazy, easy-going, happy and unselfish, and it has all but been destroyed by a little gang of bullies who have led mankind into the Sahara desert following a few shining banners of ideals. Look at us. Today only a few selected workers are left in action. Just the smartest, keenest, foxiest, greediest. The rest of us are strewn along the desert where we fell. The Frise Plan, my boy, will elevate human nature to its true grandeur. Death to all reformers! Down with progress! Let’s stand still and rest for a change. We’ve had a century of progress. Now for a century of rest.”

“How will you launch it?” I asked.

“We’ll offer our services to Ottawa,” said Jim.

“I think Canada as a whole is much too broad a field,” I protested. “The greatest movements in history all had a modest and local beginning.”

“Ontario then,” said Jim.

“Much too large,” I said. “And it is lousy with parties.”

“Toronto then,” said Jim.

“I suggest you try it out in your home first. If you can pass yourself off as a Brain Trust in your own home, you can pass yourself off anywhere.”

“Will you come in on this with me?” asked Jimmie. “It will be the makings of you. Your name will go down to posterity as Frise’s right-hand man.”

“Sure, I’ll come in with you,” I said, “only I don’t want to steal any of your glory. You start it. I’ll stand by for the first day or so. How will you start?”

“I’ll go around to-night and explain the Frise Plan to all the local business men – Mr. Robertson the butcher, and all three grocery stores, the two drug stores, and so on. I’ll just get their co-operation in a small way, by having them take back any helpers they have laid off. And explain how they have all got to slow down and work less, as each man rejoins their organization.”

“I don’t think you will get much sympathy at first,” I suggested.

“You wait.”

Launching the Frise Plan

About eight o’clock, Mr. Robertson, the butcher, called me on the telephone. “Have ye seen Maister Frise lately?” asked Mr. Robertson.

“I saw him before supper,” I said.

“Did he look well to ye?” asked Mr. Robertson. “He wasna actin’ a bit daft?”

“He seemed all right to me, Mr. Robertson.”

“Weel, he’s just walked oot o’ here to see the plumber across the way, and I’m thinkin’ puir Maister Frise has gone fooey,” said Mr. Robertson.

“I’ll come right over and see you,” I said.

Mr. Robertson quoted word for word the Frise Plan. Mr. Frise had stood right there, in the butcher shop, and had said thus and so.

“What do you think of the scheme?” I asked.

“I think the mon’s daft,” said Mr. Robertson. “Clean daft.”

I argued for the Frise Plan as well as I could, and then Mr. Robertson and I had a bright idea.

It took a little working out. We had to telephone several of Jimmie’s friends, and we had to do a lot of work in the city directory to get the names we wanted.

But by ten p.m. we had the Frise Plan in operation. We got in touch by telephone with the last three Frise housemaids, all of whom were free to go back to work. I knew two of Jimmie’s former gardeners or grass cutters, and I got them. They would report at 8 a.m. The plumber, the painter and decorator, the roof repair man with three helpers, the man that white-washes cellars, all were located and all promised to be on hand sharp at 8 the next morning. The hardest to find were the cooks. Cooks are seldom out of a job. But it so happened that two former cooks were available, one a colored lady and the other an Irish lady, to whom we explained the Frise Plan and who thought it was beautiful beyond words.

Jimmie was late getting home from visiting all the business men of our district, so that his family were all in bed and he had no opportunity to explain the Frise Plan to them.

I was parked in front of Jim’s house by a quarter to 8 the next morning, when the Irish cook, with two large telescope valises, arrived. There was a commotion in which I could see Jimmie taking a noble part, and during which the roofing crew with their truck and trailer arrived, and the crew swarmed on to the lawn with their ladders, rolls, ropes and pails.

One gardener, two maids, the white-washer of cellars, and the other cook arrived in a heap and some took the front steps and others manoeuvred around the side entrance to the back door.

The plumber with two assistants was blocking the side drive with his truck when the painter and decorator arrived with his stepladders and planks.

Spreading Like Wildfire

I drove down a couple of houses to make room for the gathering clans.

On the steps I could see Jimmie making a speech and I assumed he was explaining the Frise Plan to the former workers of the Frise establishment. So I got out of the car and joined the multitude.

“Fellow citizens,” Jimmie was saying. “I exhort you not to work too hard. But let all of us work just a little bit, so as to allow room for our fellow man.”

There were heart-felt murmurs of approbatjon.

And then the throng surged into the house, with bags, ladders, planks, pails.

“Well, Jimmie, she’s launched,” I said. Jim was flushed with excitement.

“I had no idea it would take on so swiftly,” he cried, dragging me into the house by the elbow. “I just spoke to about a dozen people last night. But it must have spread like wildfire. It must be all over town. Look at these people. They’ve all heard of it, and have come back to work.”

“You don’t need any plumbing done, do you?”

“No,” said Jim, “I had it all overhauled in the summer.”

“Too many cooks spoil the broth,” I pointed out, seeing the Irish lady and the colored lady both marching ready and resolute toward the kitchen.

“We will all do a little,” said Jim. “There is work for all.”

“How about coming to work yourself,” I asked. “It’s 8.30.”

“This is so sudden,” said Jimmie. “I think I’ll stick around a while until the family gets used to it.”

The plumber was banging in the basement, the painters were erecting their ladders and spreading their canvases, the roof repair men were scaling the outside of the house, three gardeners were peeling off their sweater coats to start digging. Two of them were arguing loudly over the lawn mower. A tremendous clatter of pans was coming from the kitchen. Maids were already punching cushions and shaking drapes and curtains, the way maids do.

“Where’s your family?” I asked.

“Hidden themselves in the attic,” said Jim. “They always do when my ideas start working.”

“How long are you going to keep all these people here?” I inquired.

“I’ll figure that out,” said Jim. “Each step in a problem you take as you come to it. The main thing is, the Frise Plan is under way.”

“Mr. Frise,” said the Irish lady, appearing at the kitchen door, “if we’re feedin’ all this mob, you’d better get some groceries.”

“What do we need, Molly?”

“Tin loaves av bread, five pounds av butter, say a tin-pound roast av bafe, about a crate av eggs, a couple sides av bacon.”

“And,” said the colored lady, appearing alongside Molly, “a bag of corn meal, and a ham for boiling, and some pork chops and some young chickens for fryin’, Mist’ Frise, you remember I’se good at fryin’ chickens.”

“We can leave the orders in as we go by,” I said to Jimmie. “We’ve got to go to work.”

“I shouldn’t leave,” said Jim. “Who’s going to tell them what to do?”

“Under the Frise Plan,” I said, “you’d think they wouldn’t need to have anybody to tell them what to do. It’s twenty to nine. Let’s get going or we’ll have the editor on our necks.”

As Jimmie’s car was entirely walled in by trunks and trailers, I drove him down. He was in a daze. He kept watching for signs of the Frise Plan in action as we drove through the streets. In every store, around every corner, he could see evidences of a great and renewed activity, Prophets and leaders of new movements are like that.

“The world,” said Jimmie, “has been waiting for this! Did you ever see such beautiful activity?”

We were bowling along Bloor St., and there was the usual bustle of fruit stores laying forth their brilliant wares, merchants sweeping the pavement, boys getting out their bicycles, delivery trucks getting ready for the day. Nine o’clock is always a happy hour on a business street. But to Jimmie all this was new, he had never seen it before.

I delivered him to his studio.

At ten-thirty, he telephoned me in my room to ask if he could borrow my car.

At 2 p.m. I borrowed the editor’s car and drove home.

All sign of life had vanished around Jim’s house. There were ruts on the lawns, windows were open, and a general air of something having recently happened pervaded the scene.

“Jimmie,” I called anxiously in the front door.

“Is that you?” came a hollow voice from somewhere within.

“What has happened?” I cried, entering boldly.

“It was a matter of wages,” said Jim, appearing from under the chesterfield. “They had nothing to do after about ten o’clock, so they got sitting around the house, so I am told, arguing about the Frise Plan and asking who was going to pay them. And how much. They would not wait until Friday. And I distinctly told them that I would not have that part of the plan solved until Friday.”

“I remember that,” I said.

“By the time I got home,” went on Jimmie, blowing his nose violently, “they had it figured out that I would have to work twenty-one days a week, night and day, without sleep or time off for lunch, to earn enough to pay them their wages.”

“Impossible,” I said.

“In fact,” said Jimmie, “Molly, the Irish cook, had it figured out that there would have to be three of me to make it a going concern. Naturally, Molly being a cook, she knows my income.”

“So?”

“So I paid them all off,” said Jim. “It took one and a half week’s salary.”

“It was a good plan,” I said indignantly. “All it needed was a larger application.”

“Well,” said Jim, “that’s what I thought in the first place, but now we’ll wait. We’ll wait until Canada is all of one mind. Until the Maritimes and the West and B.C. and Quebec all agree with Ontario that a national plan is needed. Then I’ll produce the Frise Plan.”

Which, of course, gives Jim and me plenty of time.

Editor’s Notes:

1. A Brain Trust was a term that originally described a group of close advisers to a political candidate. The term is most associated with the group of advisers of Franklin D. Roosevelt during his presidential administration.  ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, September 9, 1933.

“I see,” said Jimmie Frise, “that roller skating has ousted dancing at the amusement parks.”

“Ousted it, eh?” said I.

“It’s cooler than dancing, in the summer,” said Jimmie. “You just glide around and get a lovely breeze. Whereas dancing is kind of stuffy for hot weather. Do you dance?”

“No, Jimmie,” I said. “I have never learned to dance. When I was young I was always terrified that if I got up and took hold of a girl I would suddenly hug her. I’m like that. Sudden, you know. And nowadays, when it is quite all right to hug them, I’m too old.”

“Don’t you barn dance?” asked Jimmie.

“I’ve tried barn dancing,” I admitted, “but I always get paired with one of those great big healthy country girls, and instead of me whirling her off her feet, she whirls me off my feet. And you don’t know how sensitive we little people are about our feet being off the ground. Why, the only reason I work so hard and make money is to have a motor car. I’ve got to have a motor car, because my pride suffers so in a street car. Don’t tell anybody, but when I am sitting in a street car, my feet hang six inches off the ground. It’s terribly humiliating.”

“Well, sir,” said Jimmie. “I’d have thought you would be a very nice dancer.”

“No,” I said sadly. “I’m too emotional.”

“But you could roller skate,” said Jim. “I suggest we go down some evening and try a whirl at roller skating. You wouldn’t dare hug a girl on roller skates. It’s too risky. And you could pick a nice little wisp of a city girl.”

“That’s the trouble,” I said. “I have no taste for these wispy little city girls. The kind of girls I like are great big healthy country girls. I’d like to roller skate with a lovely big country girl. She could whirl me around all she likes on roller skates.”

“Let’s go down some night,” said Jimmie.

“How about our wives?” I suggested. “Would they mind?”

“Certainly not,” said Jim. “They know we do these things as part of our professional duty. Finding out what the other half of the world is doing, and recording it.”

“Well, in that case,” I said.

So that hot night, we drove down to the beach and walked over to the roller-skating casino¹.

Slow, wavey music was lilting out of the big round casino, and as we paid our way in, we saw a wonderful throng of young people, swinging gracefully and smoothly about the big circular hardwood floor.

“That looks cool²,” said Jim.

We were shown into a booth where a man handed us out roller skates. We sat down on the bench and fastened them on. Now, the roller skates I remember must have been a cheaper kind. They did not have such a greased lightning action as these new model ones. They must have ball bearings and a lot of grease on them.

“Oops,” said Jimmie, standing up and taking short, careful steps. He quivered all over, but not from excitement. Just from keeping his balance.

I got up and, without even trying, I rolled easily over to Jimmie. As we took each other’s arm, we sat down heavily. A young gentleman assisted us up to our feet.

“May I help you?” he asked. Such a nice boy.

“If you don’t mind,” I said. “Just help us over to that railing.”

We stood still and he shoved us over to the railing, where we took a good hold.

“My goodness,” said Jimmie, “how they have speeded up these roller skates.”

“They are awful quick on the get-away,” I said. “Free wheeling, sort of.”

We clung to the railing and watched the solid mass of skaters whirling by in long, lazy strides, to the music.

“Perhaps,” I suggested, “we might come down some morning, when there is nobody here, and do a little practising.”

“Never take your hand from the plow,” said Jim, “once you have set to it.”

“Well, you start,” said I. “I’ll wait and see how you do it.”

“We’ll go hand in hand,” said Jim.

A little unsteadily, we edged along the railing and got near the entrance to the floor. The nearer we got to the surging, sweeping throng, the more terrifying it became.

“Jimmie.” I exclaimed, “we should never get out there. It’s ridiculous.”

“Once we are in the whirl, we will just be pushed along,” said he. “Come on.”

Holding hands, we stepped on to the floor and let her roll. We rolled about ten feet with all the skaters weaving gracefully wide of us. Then a couple bunted Jimmie slightly, as he took one of those staggery steps you take on roller skates, which whirled him about facing me. We clutched. Fell. And about twenty people piled on top of us, like a rugby scrimmage.

The same kind young man who picked us up before came and unscrambled us. He was some sort of an attendant.

“If you gentlemen can’t skate—” he said.

“Oh, we can skate,” said Jimmie, clinging to a pillar in the centre of the floor. “It just takes a few minutes for it to come back to us.”

Staggering and Stumbling

Hand in hand, we staggered and stumbled into the swing again, and got around once very nicely, without anybody being upset, even us, before the music stopped.

“Let’s practise now for a minute while everybody is off the floor,” said Jimmie. So we went around once again, hand in hand, with everybody very interested in us. They were laughing at Jimmie, his long legs looked so funny taking such little short steps. I just stood still, and Jim slid me along with him. Occasionally, my right foot would start to go another direction, but with a little effort, I could get it steered back in the right direction before it was too late.

The music started, and the floor filled up with the jam, and we went around five times before the band stopped again. We did much better. I took several steps all on my own, and except for once, when my right, or outer leg, got too far away for me to pull it back, everything went fine. It was Jim who saved me. He steered me for the side lines, and just as I was about to sit down with my right leg pointing to Niagara Falls, Ont., and my left toward Orillia, I came slam up against the railing.

Just behind the railing, a very large girl, whom I at once recognized as a lovely big country girl, was resting on her elbows. And as I came zooming in, all spread wide, she reached forward and caught me by the collar and held me steady until I got my balance.

“Whoa, boy!” she said, cheerfully.

As we proceeded on our way, Jimmie whispered:

“Now, there’s the girl for you. Two hundred pounds, if she’s an ounce. I bet she can skate like a truck.”

“She said ‘whoa boy’ to me,” I said.

“Well, that’s a sort of introduction,” said Jimmie, who was perspiring a little. “The next round, you had better get her to take you around.”

“Am I a burden to you?” I demanded. “Do you think I am doing nothing but hold on to you?”

“Oh, it’s all right,” said Jim. “Only I think that big girl could whirl you around better and, anyway, it would look nicer than seeing two grizzled old birds like us holding hands round and round.”

“Very well,” I said. “I’ll manage by myself.”

When the band ended, Jim went over and spoke to two girls who sing in the choir, and one of them said she would be very glad indeed to skate with Mr. Frise.

Between bands, you go out back of the railing, and I slithered and staggered around the curve until I came to where the big girl was still leaning splendidly on the railing. She happened to see me approaching and she turned around and smiled at me.

“Well, well,” she said. “And how’s it going?”

“Suddenly, thank you,” I said, taking hold of the railing. “I don’t seem to get the hang of this business.”

“It isn’t a hang,” she said. “It’s a glide. Look: you can’t fall if you tried.”

And she took a quick whirl on her skates and the whole two hundred pounds of her spun around gracefully.

“Marvellous,” I said. “Are you from the country?”

“Yes, why do you ask?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I like country people,” I said. “They are sort of secure and safe.”

“Where’s your tall friend?” she asked.

“Oh, he’s found a couple of girls from the choir who will help him around,” I said.

“Well, in that case,” said the big girl, “maybe I might have the pleasure of steering you around this next band.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful,” I cried. “Would you really?”

“Certainly,” said the big girl, so strong, so secure.

Long, Sweeping Curves

The band started almost at once, and the big girl, whose name I never got, unfortunately, because I would like her relations in the country to know about this, took me by the elbow and slid me along the railing and out on to the floor. Before I knew where I was, I was moving around that big circle in long, sweeping curves, the other people, the walls, the pillars, were all a blur, it was like flying, floating, diving. I saw skaters ahead, and, just as I held my breath for the crash, we swooped sideways past them. Boy, was I whirling! And all in step with the music, too.”

“There’s your gentleman friend,” said a voice somewhere above me.

But all I saw of Jimmie was a grayish blur.

We swooped in toward the middle. We swept out toward the edge. I could feel the skates heating under my feet.

“How are you coming?” asked the voice on high.

“Great,” I said.

“All right, we’ll put a little pep into it, then,” said the big girl, as she took a firmer grip of my arm.

Jimmie said afterwards that it was the most wonderful spectacle he ever saw. The band forgot to quit. Two by two, the other skaters got out of the way and fled to the sides or else got right out of the casino.

“You were not only standing straight out,” said Jimmie, when I recovered consciousness. “Some of the time, your feet were actually pointing up about fifteen degrees.”

All I recall was a sensation like being on the dip the dips³. Which, of course, I never went on but the once, some years ago. I could hear the big girl breathing. She had me by the wrist, and sometimes by the elbow. All was a blur. We went around and around, the music getting faster and faster. I shut my eyes.

“Wheeeeee!” cried the big girl. “Atta boy!”

“Pardon me,” I said, with my eyes shut.

“You’re the kind of partner I like,” panted the big girl, off there in the blur and hum. “Whooop!”

That was one of the times I must have been sticking up in the air. I heard cheers, yells, and thunderous applause, but I did not bow. I just kept my eyes shut, and took a hold of the big girl’s sleeve with my other hand.

“Are you engaged for the next band?” panted the big girl. “May I have you for the next band?”

I pretended to be asleep.

I could tell by the sound that all the skaters were off the floor, but the band kept tooting away and the applause mounted.

Suddenly there was an awful crash. What happened was that Jimmie, feeling responsible for me, and thinking I was being made a fool of in public, simply slid out on to the floor and tripped the big girl deliberately. Jimmie, on his hands and knees, slid me along the floor to the exit, and when I came to I was in the little lobby, with my skates off.

“Where is she?” I asked Jimmie.

“Waiting inside for you,” said Jim.

“Oh, please!” I begged.

“It’s all right,” said Jim. “I said I’d bring you back as soon as we brought you to, but we’re sneaking out this back door right now.”

We sneaked. There was a big crowd outside, waiting to see the next performance through the lattice work. But Jim led me through safely, and we got to the car without any embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” said Jim.

“I’ll never live it down,” I said. “I am ruined!”

“Nobody could recognize you,” said Jimmie. “Not even me. You were just a blur.

“Small men,” I said, “should never at tempt dancing, skating or any other of the paired social activities. They should be the strong, silent type that is contemptuous of trifling things like dancing.”

“And anyway,” said Jim, “small men should stick to small girls.”

“You can’t control your taste,” I submitted.

“Yes, but you don’t have to let your taste break your neck,” retorted Jimmie.

So we decided not to take up roller skating.

Editor’s Notes:

1. In this case, “casino” goes by the definition of “a building or room used for social amusements”. ↩︎
2. In another change of slang, Jimmie just means it looks like a way of keeping cool. “Cool” as slang wasn’t used until later in the 1930s by jazz musicians and it took longer after that for use in the general public. ↩︎
3. “Dip the Dips” was the name of several early roller coasters. Apparently there was one at Hanlan’s Point in Toronto starting in 1908. ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, February 11, 1933.

“Us non-conformists,” said Jim Frise, “are funny. We have thrown over all the saints except a few that are of commercial value.”

“Such as?” I inquired.

“Santy Claus and St. Valentine,” said Jim. “I think I’ll suggest to the government that they restore all the saints again and make a commercial hook-up with each of them, so that every day of the year we would have to send something to our friends. If that wouldn’t revive business, what would?”

“Pardon me,” said I, “for my brains. But, as a matter of fact, Jimmie, St. Valentine’s day¹ is a lot older than any of the several St. Valentines. The custom of sending valentines and flowers and candies to your love on February 14 was in full swing long before the Christian era.”

“How?” asked Jim.

“February 14 was the day,” I went on proudly, “in ancient Rome when all the boys drew lots for their girls, in preparation for the next day, February 15, when Rome celebrated the arrival of spring. It was the day of Juno Februaria², if you know what that means, because I don’t. It was a day of dancing and feasting. It was a day of rejoicing, love making.³“

“Whoopee,” said Jim.

“Hotcha,” said I. “They killed nanny goats and threw hunks of meat at the girls, for luck.”

“Just like the elections in Toronto,” said Jim.

“You can’t think up anything new,” I said. “Rome went wawa⁴ for a couple of days. All in honor of spring. Bands marching up and down the main street, all the old men slightly pickled, all the old ladies in the kitchen roasting chickens, and all the young people galloping up and down, arm in arm, singing and hollering at each other.”

“You make it seem almost modern,” said Jim. “Except for the setting, it might be to-day.”

“No,” said I, “business interferes nowadays. All we’ve got is the shadow of the old customs. We mail a few valentines, and a few people give valentine parties. But on February 14, you won’t see any jubilee in this country.”

“Yes,” said Jimmie, sentimentally, dreaming out the window, “but love remains.”

“Does it?”

“Sure,” said Jim. “The outward customs may have changed, but love is just as strong as it ever was. All this great city, jammed full of love. All the men in all these tall buildings, all in love; all the pretty girls pretending to be working, but first of all in love. All the houses side by side, in a thousand streets, each one thinking it is hiding a secret, but every house a monument to love!”

“That’s swell, Jim!”

“Yeah, and out in the country, all the fields plowed, what for? For love. All the young men leaning on the rail fences, looking across the country at some house, some hillside, for love. Love is at the bottom of it all. Maybe they get lost, as time goes on. But love started everything. All this business, these factories, offices, miles of streets, everything started because somebody was in love with somebody else, and wanted to make things for her. Make her a fortune. Make her a living. Make her dreams come true. Every skyscraper a valentine, every mansion, every cottage, every shop counter, work bench, a valentine to some unknown, perhaps forgotten love!”

“Not bad, Jim.”

In Quest of Love

“So don’t let’s be cynical. St. Valentine’s day is the day for the celebration of love, and when we look at all this hustle and bustle, we ought to give love her due.”

“Then why not have our modern St. Valentine’s day,” I asked, “on October first, the beginning of the fiscal year?”

“There you go!” cried Jim. “You are cynical about love. You don’t think love is what it used to be?”

“I think we have reduced love to a pretty small potato in relation to life as a whole, to business, labor, success, progress or whatever it is we are trying to do these days.”

“All nonsense!” stated Jim. “I could take you out and show you more love in one evening than you could have seen in the whole of Rome, even in the midst of their whoopee.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere,” said Jim. “Any street, any village.”

“It might make a story,” I admitted. “You take me to-night and show me.”

After dinner I walked around to Jim’s and, telling his family that he was going to a political meeting with me (it’s great to be newspapermen!), he led me forth in quest of love.

“An apartment house,” said Jimmie, “is a regular love nest. I am taking you to an apartment where a couple of my friends live. They are, to my mind, the most joyously loving couple I have ever heard of. I just love to visit them. They know everybody else in the apartments, and they all visit each other, and the halls are filled with happy laughing people, young and middle-aged and old, every night. The place rings with happiness. Talk about ancient Rome! Why, that apartment house is just one big Roman festival all year long.”

“Oh, I admit,” I said, as we drove through the night, “I admit there are spots here and there. But on the great average love doesn’t cut much figure in the life of people nowadays.”

“These are average!” cried Jim. “This apartment house is just a cross section of humanity. You wait. Just because blinds are drawn and houses are detached, you needn’t think your house is the only abode of love in the whole world!”

We drove up Avenue road and came to a pleasant district where apartment houses cast their communal radiance into the night. We pulled up in front of a very handsome one and Jim led me into the foyer. It was Roman. Rich gilding and bright colors and Roman tile floor. A self-serve elevator carried us up three floors.

A number of muffled radios could be heard as we walked along the carpeted corridor past numbered doors. We heard a child crying. At another door we heard a lay⁵ screaming. At still another, as we marched along, we heard a man yell:

“Oh, is zat so!”

I plucked Jim’s coatsleeve and hinted with a head-movement that we scram.

“Just radio,” said Jim. “Listening to mystery dramas.”

“It sounded awfully life-like to me,” I replied.

Around a turn in the corridor we marched. This was a big cross section of humanity, this one. A door opened ahead of us and a young man holding a bowler hat tightly on his head, with his face very pale and set, came bouncing out and rushed past us in the hall, nearly knocking me down.

“You Home-Breaker!”

We paused outside the door. But inside was absolute silence. Not even a radio.

“H’m,” said I. “Well, lead on. Where’s your friend?”

“That was my friend!” said Jim. “He didn’t recognize me.”

I wanted to laugh, but Jim’s face deterred me.

“Why not let’s go in and see the lady?” I suggested. “Maybe what we saw was misleading.”

Jim rapped softly with his knuckles on the apartment door.

“Go way!” screamed a feminine voice within. “I hate you!”

So Jimmie and I went away. We walked down that long carpeted hall slowly, listening as we passed each door to the muffled radios, the tapping of heels on hardwood floors, the snatches of words, the silences.

“I tell you,” said Jim, “the last time I was here my friends took me upstairs to see the nicest middle-aged couple, the Gabwins. Let’s drop in on them while we’re here.”

“This is a bad night,” I said.

But Jim got me into the automatic elevator again, a queer, slow-moving, menacing thing with buttons to push. And up we went.

Again we started along a padded hall, Jim looking at the doors.

“I think,” he said, “it was either 24 or 34.”

We paused outside 24 and just as Jim was about to knock there was a terrific crash inside the door and a male voice roared:

“Pick up your feet!”

We hurried away down the hall.

“That wasn’t Gabwin’s voice,” said Jim.

“Try 34,” said I.

“We found 34 and after listening cautiously for a moment and hearing nothing Jim rapped delicately on 34.

The door jerked open.

A big man in a purple silk dressing gown, a big man with a purplish face and the most glaring eyes, stood before us.

His gaze fastened on me and he bared his teeth.

“So!” he said, through his nose, and crouching down slightly.

I backed up.

“So!” snarled the big man, treading with catlike steps toward me, “you brought a big friend with you, eh!”

With one grab, he took me by both coat-lapels and with a yank such as you see only in the movies he hoisted me through the air and hurled me inside his apartment, where I fell in a heap on the hardwood hall floor.

“Here!” I could hear Jimmie crying beyond, “a mistake! Excuse me! The wrong apartment! Just a minute! Hey!”

But dimly, as in a dream, I felt myself picked up again and yanked this way and that, and again I was hurled and this time I lit on a large, soft chesterfield.

“Hey!” I could hear Jim. “Hey! Just a minute!”

But a door slammed and Jimmie I could hear no more.

I removed my hat so as to see, and there standing before me was this large, bluish man, with his jaw stuck out.

“I,” he said, “am going to bust every bone in your body! Thought I was out of town, did you? Ha, ha!”

He laughed like Fu Manchu.

“Home-breaker!” he bellowed. “A little squirt like you daring to come hanging around my home, heh! I’ll –“

And in a blur of purple and blue fury he whipped off his dressing gown and started to roll up his sleeves.

“Love!” I croaked, hollowly.

“Annhh?” snarled the big man, stopped in mid-air.

“I said love,” said I, tucking my feet under me and drawing my neck down into my coat collar.

An Off-Night For Sentiment

The big man looked about to burst. His forehead, his neck and his stomach all appeared about to explode. He gasped staggered back.

“You – you –” he stammered, speechless.

There was a wild thumping on the door. Voices could be heard howling. A key scraped in the door and in burst Jimmie and a man with a dirty face whom I immediately recognized as the janitor, and a beautiful young lady.

“Are you hurt?” gasped Jim.

“I dared him to touch me,” said I.

The big man made a lunge for me, but the pretty girl thrust him aside lightly.

“This isn’t him,” she said to the big fellow. “Put on your dressing gown.”

“Isn’t him!” said the big man. “Then who is it?”

“He is my friend,” said Jim, heatedly, “and we are looking for Mr. Gabwin’s apartment. And we rapped at your door and this bird grabbed my little friend and whirled him through the air –“

The big fellow said:

“Well, I feel better anyhow!”

“My husband,” said the girl, “is very jealous of my men friends.”

The janitor beckoned Jim and me out. “The Gabwins,” said the janitor, as we got out in the hall, “aren’t living here anymore.”

“Why, it was only New Year’s I was here,” said Jim.

“Yes,” said the janitor. “It was very sudden.”

“Dead!” cried Jim.

“No,” said the janitor. “No, a little domestic trouble. She’s gone back to her mother and he’s living in a boarding-house down town.”

“Love nest,” said I.

“I beg your pardon?” asked the janitor.

“It is nothing,” said I.

We got in the elevator and softly, creepily, slowly descended to the street.

“Well?” said I.

“It’s an off night,” said Jim. “An off night. How would you like to go to a movie? There’s a swell love story down at the Uptown⁶.”

“How,” I asked, “about going to your place and letting me see all those old Birdseye Centre originals you’ve got. You said I could pick a few out for framing some time.”

“Well,” said Jim, “as a matter of fact, I’d rather not to-night. You see, we had a little row just before I came out over the children using my studio room for a play house — Let’s go to your place and look at trout flies. It’s only ten weeks to the first of May.”

“Not to-night,” I said. “My wife didn’t want me to go out to-night, it was my turn to stay home and mind the house. So, we – I — you see?”

“That’s too bad,” said Jim. “However, it will be Valentine’s Day on Tuesday.”

“And everything will be hunky-dory then,” said I.

Editor’s Notes:

1. Valentine’s Day history. ↩︎
2. Specific details on Juno Februata. ↩︎
3. “Love making” pre-1960s or so, meant courting or flirting, or perhaps a little kissing. ↩︎
4. “Going wawa” meant acting all crazy. ↩︎
5. I have no idea. This just might be a typo. Perhaps they meant “baby”. ↩︎
6. The Uptown Theatre opened in 1920 and was demolished in 2003. ↩︎