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Show BROADWAY AND MAIN STREET Uncle Charlie and Leopard Had MuchinCommon; They Both Preferred Lunch to UveOrDidThey? By BILLY ROSE Some weeks ago when the newspapers nt-paged t estory the leopard which strolled back into its cage aftei tong three days, a lot of people wondered whether .Jfeopard in was hungry or because it was lonely for a certain lady leopara in the next enclosure. . strange double-It double-It so happened that around the same time, by a strange u take of destiny, my Uncle Charlie also went on the prowl and hi -.re turn a few days later raised the identical question on the lower .a Side was it lunch or was it love? It all began when my Aunt Frieda got the social bee in her babushka, I'm not doubting," said my aunt. "From the medicine chest is missing miss-ing a full box bicarbonate." ON THE WAY BACK to their flat, Frieda got right down to cases. "What is between you and Mrs. Greenhouse?" she asked. "Strictly a cash arrangement," said Charlie. "Seven suppers for 10 dollars." "You can't pull the wool behind my back," said my aunt. "Just to eat, a man does not take a bath and wear a whole flowershop in the buttonhole." but-tonhole." "I am also enjoying her company," com-pany," my uncle admitted. "On many things me are seeing eye to tooth." "If for widows you got such a likinz." said Frieda, "I could may- is away the cat, is playing the mice and they ain't playmg kla-biash." kla-biash." "You are implicating my Charlie is a rat?" "Rat, schmat! Ask the widow Greenhouse." A bit shaken, Frieda posted herself her-self inside the candy store across the street, and when Charlie, wearing wear-ing a carnation, came out she followed fol-lowed him-and sure enough, he high-stepped down the block to the joined the Delancey street chapter of the Daughters of Deborah, and went off to Atlantic City for its annual convention. con-vention. Knowing Charlie for what he was a man with his feet in the clouds and his head on the ground Frieda began to Billy Rose worry that he'd get ptomaine from eating a tainted blintz in a restaurant, and so one afternoon she boarded a bus and made a quick trip to New York to see if everything was all right. "YOU MISS ME, Charlie?" "Why should I miss you you're here. What gives in Atlantic City?" "In Atlantic City is giving speeches," said my aunt. "Tomorrow "Tomor-row we are deciding about the hydrogen hy-drogen bomb, yes or no." "In such a case, you better go right back," said my uncle. "Bye-bye, "Bye-bye, and don't take no wooden knishes." On the street, Frieda met a gossipy gos-sipy neighbor who said, "When home of Mrs. Greenhouse. Now, if this were a movie, our heroine would hold her tongue for six reels of misunderstanding and suspense-but Frieda was never one for slow emotion. She waited a jittery jit-tery five minutes, rang the widow's beU and barged right in when she saw Charlie sitting in front of a mound of chopped liver big enough to feed the four Marx Brothers. "Pull up a chair," said the widow. wid-ow. "I got a pot roast you could cut it with a fingernail." Frieda sniffed. "To me, it smells like a boiled beef what boiled too long." "Is that so?" said Mrs. Greenhouse. Green-house. "All week your husband is enjoying." be become one myself." When they reached home, Frieda pulled the pin out of her hat. "Tomorrow," "To-morrow," she announced, "is roast duck on the menu. Monday it gives sauerbraten; Tuesday, chicken with mandlen soup." "The widow makes a grade-A goulash," needled by uncle. "Let her make," said my aunt, "and let her eat." And that ended Charlie's life on the loose and Frieda's career as a clubwoman. As for the question: "Is love or lunch more important to the male animal?" well, the leopard is dead and my uncle isn't talking. |
