HE instigator of that immortal remark, “They never come back!” coyly conceals his identity but the chances are this famous quotation was first delivered by either a landlady, a pawnbroker or the wife of a traveling salesman. In any case the jovial quip is open to suspicion because they do come back—sometimes, as I hope to prove to my own, your and everybody else’s satisfaction.
The records have it that it’s a long, long journey movie actors, pugilists and other celebrities in the public optic have to travel to reach the land of fame and fortune after they have once slipped. In fact the going is so tough there’s plenty alibi for those who totter and fall by the wayside. This spicy narrative has to do with a certain party who made the grade and came all the way back from nowhere at all.
If you haven’t met him before allow me to introduce you to Ottie Scandrel.
Scandrel, a choice sample of idiocy, had built himself up a healthy bank roll, and a reputation of sorts through the years. Mistress Luck had wooed and won him consistently with the result that his own general opinion of his genius and cleverness was extremely ludicrous. Ottie really imagined he could get away with anything from selling the bottling rights to the Pacific to managing the League of Nations and for two years or twenty-four months he clowned successfully and pushed his nonsense over without mishap.
Then when everything was as rosy as could be he dipped into Wall Street, the market promptly dropped for the count and a month after that had stripped him as clean as a bone between the paws of a ravenous setter.
It was a cruel break!
Being broke, however, failed in any way to stunt Scandrel’s egotism or to make him lose an inch of confidence in the most important subject he had anything to do with—himself. He promptly fired the chauffeur, butler and valet who lived with and on him. A gentleman with a beard who was in the secondhand clothing business obtained most of the famous Scandrel wardrobe after Ottie had cuffed him into a fair price, a plumber gave him twelve dollars even for the tin that had four wheels but no brakes and the management took his rooms back at the hotel.
All this accomplished, Ottie came up to the Bronx and took a room at my gym large enough to hold himself, his photographs and his library—five volumes entitled “Press Clippings.”
The two weeks following his financial disaster found the champion of conceit thinking up new stunts to get back to his former money-making status. The first of his bright ideas was to endeavor to interest a firm of hat manufacturers in a dicer he had invented and patented. This was a folding derby guaranteed to foil coat-room boys and theater habitués with heavy feet. The thing failed to click because of the condition of the hardware market and the excessive cost of hinges. Ottie was baffled but not discouraged.
A couple of days later he wandered into the gym one morning, the typical image of wealthy prosperity. The smirk he wore was matches and kerosene so far as Looie Pitz, a little fight manager who loitered around the gym, was concerned. Looie was as fond of Scandrel as a wrong telephone number.
“What did you do—find a quarter in an old pair of pants?” Pitz sneered, getting the smile three ways.
So far as Ottie was concerned the other might have been in any part of Asia.
“I got an idea, Joe,” he said directly to me. “Not an idea—the idea!”
“Treat it well—it’s in a strange place!” Pitz butted in cheerfully. “You and them ridiculous notions of yours—I’m laughing for you! Why don’t you find a job and get acquainted with work? There was a position advertised in the paper this morning for a job that you could fill to perfection.”
“The bottle business?” Scandrel asked with some interest.
“No, down at the gas company!” Pitz snickered, stepping behind me.
“Come, come!” I horned in. “You boys quarrel like next-door neighbors every time you are close together. Cut it out now and shake hands.”
“And take the chance of getting a finger or two crooked?” Ottie yelped. “Be yourself, boy. I didn’t come in here to jab—I come in to gab. Listen. In the middle of the night or about six o’clock this morning when I was asleep I woke up with this here idea I’m telling you about. The stock market might have given me a twist but you know the old saying—you can’t keep a good man in glass houses. Right now I know where there’s a package of money all wrapped up and waiting for me to call around and collect it. What amazes me is that I never thought of it before.”
Pitz laughed.