Hipótesis general

Well, I haven’t had much time lately to dope out many new jokes. I have been helping the girls in the Follies make out their income tax. A vital question comes under the heading of salary. You know that’s a mighty big item with us, when I say us, I don’t mean me, as no one has given me any- thing yet, but I stick around in case a few crumbs drop.

I have been looking for a bribe from some of our prominent men to keep their name out of my act, but the only ones who even speak to me are the ones I mention. So I guess about the only way you can get a man sore nowadays is to ignore him.

One girl wanted to charge off taxi cab fares to and from the theater. I told her she couldn’t do that. She said, “Well, how am I to get there?” I said, “Well, as far as the government is concerned you can come on the subway.” She said, “Oh! What is the subway?”

Another girl who has been with the various Follies for 10 years wanted to know what she could charge off for depreciation. And she was absolutely right because if, after being with them for that long, and you haven’t mar- ried at least one millionaire, you certainly have a legitimate claim for de- preciation.

I reminded one of the girls that she had neglected to include two of her alimony allowances. She said, “Do I have to put them in?” I said, “Why cer- tainly you do.” The girl said, “Well, how did the government keep track of them? I couldn’t.”

One girl charged off a non-providing husband under the heading of bad debts. We charged off all cigarets smoked in public under the heading, ad- vertising.

One sweetheart who paid for a girl’s dinner every night, went thor- oughly broke in Wall Street by trying to corner canned tomatoes in the late Piggledy-Wiggedy uprising.1_{We figured up what the dinners would be for}

the rest of the year and charged him off as a total loss.

And right here I want to say what an honest bunch these girls are. They don’t want to beat the government out of a thing. One girl who had been away for a few weeks last winter to Palm Beach, left a husband in the good hands of her girl chum. When she returned the girl chum gave her a $2,000 bracelet. Now she wanted to include this item in her tax and we couldn’t figure out where to put it. Finally we decided it was rents, so we put in “For Rent, of one husband, $2,000.”

Of course while the girls had these tremendous salaries I was able to help on account of my technical knowledge of them, (as I dress with their chauffeurs) and on account of my equal knowledge of making out an in- come tax, with any man in the world. As none of us knew a thing about it. Look what I saved them on bathing suits! I had them all claim they bought various suits. And I defy even a Congressional investigating com- mittee, (you certainly can’t pick any more useless body of men than they are) I defy them to say that a bathing suit on a beautiful girl don’t come under the heading of legitimate advertising.

Now, as I say, these girls all wanted to do what was right, as they could afford to but this income tax has not acted that way with the men. (The in- come tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.)

Even when you make one out on the level, you don’t know when it’s through if you are a crook or a martyr.

Of course, people are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience be their guides.

There is some talk of lowering it, and they will have to. People are not making enough to pay it.

And, by the way, the only way they will ever stop bootlegging, too, is to make them pay an income tax. (At present it is a tax exempt industry.) Income tax has stopped every other industry, so there is no reason why it won’t stop bootlegging.

Of course, some of our more thrifty girls have followed the example of their male tax dodging friends and incorporated (as the rate is lower on cor- porations). Wall Street attended to that little matter when they were draw- ing the tax bill up in Washington.

These girls had to do it, the same as men, to protect their salaries. Of course, the big gamble in buying into these individual corporations is the lucky chance that she might make one or more wealthy marriages during the year. When of course, her being incorporated, all she gets come under the heading of income, and you, as a stockholder, get your pro rata share. If she lands a big one you have struck oil. Then, on the other hand, she may marry for love. In that case you have brought in a duster.

For example, down on the Exchange you will find the Anastasia Reed, incorporated along with General Motors and Blue Jay Corn Plasters.2_At

the end of the year, stockholders, after adding up the salary along with the accumulated alimony, can either declare a dividend, or vote a dinner and put the undivided profits into the growing concern.

Now, I can’t tell you the name but I was lucky enough to land five shares just before a blonde corporation married a multi-millionaire who was over 70 years of age. Us stockholders have figured out at our last met- ing that if he dies when we think he will (and we have no reason to believe otherwise, unless the poison acts as a monkey gland) why, just those five shares make me independent for life.

I don’t want to use this space as an ad, but I have been able for a small monetary fee, to tip off my friends just what stock to buy. You see I am in a position to judge as I watch who is in the front row every night and I can just tell when Meddlesom’s Spring Song will start percolating for some particular corporation. Now, at the present time, there is every night in the front row a millionaire Oklahoma oil magnate and a bootlegger, both an- gling for the same corporation. If this bootlegging person lands her, why her

stockholders are made for life, but if the oil magnate comes through, (for sometimes these female corporations are swayed by sentiment) why the stock won’t be worth within a thousand percent of what it will be if the bootheel party lands.

Now, take me personally; this income tax thing don’t bother me at all. You are allowed $200 for each child, and my children and my income are just coming out even now.

Well, we have had quite a few prominent visitors in to look us over lately. Mrs. Nicholas Longworth, with a party of friends, were in last night, and were good enough to come back in the dressing rooms and give me all the latest on Washington.3

She is sure a chip off the old block. Talk about pep! And sense of humor! I told her I had heard her husband, Nick, might be the next Speaker of the House.4_{She said she didn’t know. I told her I would hate to see that}

as now he had an awful lot of friends. Being Speaker of the House is just like jumping, in a small town, from town marshal to Justice of the Peace. That is as far as you can go politically. So I hate to see Nick get in bad and spoil a promising career. I can understand him wanting to be Speaker of a House as I have visited them at home, and it will at least be a novelty for him.

I asked her who it looked like the Democrats would run. She said she heard more of Ford than any one. Well, that will at least save everybody the trouble of asking who is he, and what has he done?

Among the prominent movie visitors last night was Sussie Hayakawa the Japanese screen star and his cunning little Japanese wife.5_{After intro-}

ducing them to the audience, I said that they were a movie couple who were still married to each other, which might not mean so much in their country, as perhaps it was a native custom to stay married in Japan. But that in this country it was a novelty.

We had quite a sensational murder here of Dorothy Keenan, and on ac- count of the prominence of a mysterious Mr. Marshall they wouldn’t tell his real name.6_{They had us all worked up, and when they did tell it nobody}

knew any more than they did before. He was better known by “Marshall” than by his own name.

After all the fuss the papers had made over the prominence of this friend of the girls, I thought it would at least be Bryan or Lodge, or maybe Uncle Joe—at least somebody we had heard of.7_{How was the man going}

to be well known.

Well, see by the papers where the Prince of Wales over in England fell off his horse again today.8_{That’s got so it is not news any more. If he stayed}

afraid he will be hurt. I should suggest they have men follow along on foot with a net and catch him each time as he falls.