F. Scott Fitzgerald

“ This conception is entirely erroneous. Half the time his mind is a vacuum, in which confused clots of information and misinformation drift and stir—the rest of the time he broods upon the minute details of his daily existence. He is too old, even, for the petty spites which represent to the aged the single gesture of vitality they can make against the ever-increasing pressure of life and youth.
When he enters the room he looks neither to left nor right, but with his head shaking faintly and his mouth moving in a shorter vibration, makes directly for the bookcase.
JERRY. Hello, Dada. ”

“ JERRY. Charlit, if you want to read a good story, read the one about the fella who gets shipwrecked on the Buzzard Islands and meets the Chinese girl, only she isn’t a Chinese girl at all.
CHARLOTTE [she’s still up-stairs, remember] . What?
JERRY. There’s one story in there—are you reading the Saturday Evening Post?
CHARLOTTE. I would be if you didn’t interrupt me every minute.
JERRY. I’m not. I just wanted to tell you there’s one story in there about a Chinese girl who gets wrecked on the Buzzard Islands that isn’t a Chinese——
CHARLOTTE. Oh, let up, for heaven’s sakes! Don’t nag me. ”

“ JERRY. Passion!
DORIS. Emotion sort of. He’s very emotional. That’s one reason I didn’t like the last fella I was engaged to. He wasn’t very emotional. He was sort of an old cow most of the time. I’ve got to have somebody emotional. You remember that place in the Sheik where the fella says: “Must I play valet as well as lover?” That’s the sort of thing I like.
CHARLOTTE [darting a look at Jerry] . I know just what you mean.
DORIS. He’s not really as tall as I’d like him to be, but he’s got a wonderful build and a good complexion. I can’t stand anybody without a good complexion—can you? ”

“ Jerry stands there with an expressionless face. In comes Charlotte’s sister Doris.
Well, now, I’ll tell you about Doris. She’s nineteen, I guess, and pretty. She’s nice and slender and dressed in an astonishingly close burlesque of the current fashions. She’s a member of that portion of the middle-class whose girls are just a little bit too proud to work and just a little bit too needy not to. In this city of perhaps a quarter of a million people she knows a few girls who know a few girls who are “social leaders,” and through this connection considers herself a member of the local aristocracy. ”

“ They walk together to the door. Doris goes out and Charlotte has scarcely shut the door behind her when the bell rings again. Charlotte opens the door and then retreats half-way across the room, with an alarmed expression on her face. A man has come in, with a great gunny-sack slung over his shoulder. It is none other than Mr. Snooks or Snukes, the bootlegger.
I wish I could introduce you to the original from whom I have taken Mr. Snooks. He is as villainous-looking a man as could be found in a year’s search. He has a weak chin, a broken nose, a squint eye, and a three days’ growth of beard. ”

“ We’re not rich, but I always say that it’s easier for a camel to get through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to get to heaven.
SNOOKS. That’s the way I always felt.
DADA. Well, I think I’ll turn in. My sense of smell deceived me. No harm done. [He laughs.] Good night, Mr.——?
SNOOKS [humorously] . Good night, pop. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.
DADA [starting away] . I hope you’ll excuse my costume. [He goes up-stairs. Jerry returns from the pantry just in time to hear his voice.]
JERRY. Who was that? Dada?
SNOOKS. He thought he was on fire.
JERRY [unaware of the nightshirt] . ”

“ Snooks?
SNOOKS. Sure. You know old man Alec Martin?
JERRY [glancing at Charlotte, who is stony-eyed] . Sure. Everybody knows who they are.
SNOOKS. I sole ’em a gallon. And John B. Standish? I sole him five gallons and he said it was the best stuff he ever tasted.
JERRY [to Charlotte] . See—? The swellest people in town.
SNOOKS. I’d a got here sooner, only I got double crossed to-day.
JERRY. How?
SNOOKS. A fella down-town sold me out to the rev’nue officers. I got stuck for two thousand dollars and four cases Haig and Haig. ”

“ No! He does not choke, make horrible faces, nor feel his throat as it goes down. Nor does he stagger. His elation is evinced only by the vague confusion with which he mislays knife, oranges, and glasses.
Impelled by the gregarious instinct of mankind, he again repairs to the door that leads up-stairs, and opens it.
JERRY [calling] . Say, Char-lit! The convention must be over. I wonder who was nominated.
CHARLOTTE. I asked you to shut that door.
But the impulse to express himself, to fuse his new elation into the common good, is irresistible. He goes to the telephone and picks up the receiver. ”

“ You can try out all your stuff that way. A lot of stuff is sold for silver nowadays that ain’t at all.
Jerry returns with the funnel, and Mr. Snooks pours the contents of the bowl into the two glass jars.
SNOOKS [holding up one jar admiringly] . The real thing.
CHARLOTTE. It’s cloudy.
SNOOKS [reproachfully] . Cloudy? You call that cloudy? That isn’t cloudy. Why, it’s just as clear——
He holds it up and pretends to look through it. This is unquestionably a mere gesture, for the mixture is heavily opaque and not to be pierced by the human eye. ”

“ Act I This is the “living” room of Jerry Frost’s house. It is evening. The room (and, by implication, the house) is small and stuffy—it’s an awful bother to raise these old-fashioned windows; some of them stick, and besides it’s extravagant to let in much cold air, here in the middle of March. I can’t say much for the furniture, either. Some of it’s instalment stuff, imitation leather with the grain painted on as an after-effect, and some of it’s dingily, depressingly old. ”

“ A Civil War pension has kept him quasi-independent, and he looks down as from a great dim height upon Jerry (whom he thinks of as an adolescent) and Charlotte (whom he rather dislikes) . Never given to reading in his youth, he has lately become absorbed in the Old Testament and in all Old Testament literature, over which he burrows every day in the Public Library.
In person he is a small, shrivelled man with a great amount of hair on his face, which gives him an unmistakable resemblance to a French poodle. ”

“ CHARLOTTE. That’s the sort of man he is.
DORIS. He’d never be rich if you gave him the money. He hasn’t got any push. I think a man’s got to have push, don’t you? I mean sort of uh! [She gives a little grunt to express indomitable energy, and makes a sharp gesture with her hand.] I saw in the paper about a fella that didn’t have any legs or arms forty years old that was a millionaire.
CHARLOTTE. Maybe if Jerry didn’t have any legs or arms he’d do better. How did this fella make it? ”

“ The sound of their fall is very faint on his ears—and under the delusion that his error is unnoticed, he slyly kicks the books under the bookcase. Jerry and Charlotte exchange a glance. With his Bible under his arm Dada starts stealthily toward the staircase. He sees something bright shining on the first step, and, not without difficulty, stoops to pick it up. His efforts are unsuccessful.] Hello, here’s a nail that looks just like a ten-cent piece. [He starts up-stairs.] ”

“ The fact that he is almost blind and even more nearly deaf contributes to his aloof, judicial pose, and to the prevailing impression that something grave and thoughtful and important is going on back of those faded, vacant eyes. ”

“ Jerry returns with one of the best silver spoons, which he hands to Mr. Snooks.
CHARLOTTE. I might have known you would—you fool!
Mr. Snooks stirs the mixture—the spoon turns rust-colored—Charlotte gives a little cry.
SNOOKS. It won’t hurt it, lady. Just leave it out in the sun for an hour. Now the spirits of Jupiter. [He fills the medicine dropper from a small bottle and lets a slow, interminable procession of drops fall into the bowl. Jerry watches intently and with gathering anxiety. At about the fourteenth drop he starts every time one falls. Finally Mr. Snooks ceases.] ”

“ His face and hands are incrusted with dirt. He lacks one prominent tooth, lacks it with a vulgar and somehow awful conspicuousness. His most ingratiating smile is a criminal leer, his eyes shift here and there upon the carpet, as he speaks in a villainous whine.
CHARLOTTE [uneasily] . What do you want?
Mr. Snooks leers and winks broadly, whereat Charlotte bumps back against the bookcase.
SNOOKS [hoarsely] . Tell your husband Sandy Claus is here.
CHARLOTTE [calling nervously] . Jerry, here’s somebody wants to see you. He says he’s—he’s Santa Claus. ”

“ A close observer might notice that at this statement Jerry, thinking of his nefarious bargain with the b-o-o, perceptibly winces.
CHARLOTTE. Oh, that’s too bad. He was such a clean-cut fella.
DORIS. Yes, Charlotte, he was clean-cut, but that was all. I couldn’t stand it, honestly I couldn’t. I never saw such a man, Charlotte. He took the platinum sardine. When they go up in your room and steal your six-dollar-an-ounce perfume, a girl’s got to let a man go. ”

“ CHARLOTTE. I know. Who isn’t a Chinese girl. Never mind that. I’ll stay right here.
Jerry turns from her with the air of one who has done his best—but now—well, she must take the consequences.
JERRY [to Snooks] . Is this Mr. Snukes? Or Snooks?
SNOOKS. Snooks. Funny name, ain’t it? I made it up. I got it off a can of tomatoes. I’m an Irish-Pole by rights. [Meanwhile he has been emptying the sack of its contents and setting them on the table. First come two one-gallon jars, one full, the other empty. Then a square, unopened one-gallon can. Finally three small bottles and a medicine dropper.] ”

“ Photographs of children with puffed dresses and depressing leers, taken in the Fauntleroy nineties, of babies with toothless mouths and idiotic eyes, of young men with the hair cuts of ’85 and ’90 and ’02, and with neckties that loop, hoist, snag, or flare in conformity to some esoteric, antiquated standard of middle-class dandyism. ”

“ Misinformation....I asked for Information....Well, you’ll do, Long Distance....Long Distance—how far away are you? A long distance! Ha-ha!...Hello....Hello!
She has evidently rung off. Jerry does likewise.
JERRY [sarcastically] . Wonderful telephone service! [He goes quickly back to the ’phone and picks up the receiver.] Rottenest telephone service I ever saw! [He slams up and returns to his drink.]
There is a call outside, “Yoo-hoo!” and immediately afterward Doris opens the front door and comes in, followed by Joseph Fish, a red-headed, insipid young man of about twenty-four. ”