"What am I going to do New Year's? I know one thing. I ain't going to
play an encore to the sozzle session number I pulled off last season.
Didn't you hear about it? Evidently you were not on Broadway last New
Year's Eve. A couple of young ladies and myself were playing a
progressive hell party all up and down the main street. You see, you
play it this way. A guy comes up and blows a horn in your ear. You swat
the horn quickly on the end with your hand. If the guy swallows more
than half the horn you win and are allowed to 'phone for the ambulance.
But that was only a prelude to the main event. Ah, me! I blush to
chronicle it. There were so many shows in town that the supply of
college students didn't come up to the demand, and as me and the bunch
had sorta turned them down after they went and lost all their money on
the Thanksgiving game, so we had an intimation that developed into a
hunch that our little 'welcome' mat on the doorstep would not be crowded
with an eager throng. We engaged a couple of window tables at the Cafe
des Beaux Minks realizing that though we were not in the money we were
still on the track. This was last New Year's Eve. New Year's afternoon
we held a reception up at Miss Verneaque's flat, took up a collection
for the widows and orphans and cleared $4.43 apiece on it. The place got
pinched and we all had to hide on the roof until the cops beat it. But
not for me this year. Me for the peaceful kind of a celebration. I don't
know what to do. The only people I have on my calling list now are the
agents, and they will all be home splashing in the egg-nog.

"Gee, but I wish I was home. Was you ever in a country town on a New
Year's Day? Say, list. Sixty laughs in sixty minutes looks like a busy
day at the morgue compared to the laughs they hand out in one of those
one-night stand dumps. The Sons of Temperance all go out and get a bun
on ad lib. and everybody inhales good cheer. I sang in the choir. Honest