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Last week, as he took his ease in a country manor, placid Ziggy did not reflect that almost every dead U. S. producer of gay, tinkling dramatics has died without funds. Instead, he reflected that an airplane, driven by Bernt Balchen, had just made a record driving from Staten Island to Detroit; that the airplane was the very one in which the late Floyd Bennett had tried to reach Greenly Island, and that it contained, by a fortunate exception in the regulations made especially for him, Marie Marrifield, one of his dancers, who was hurrying to see a sick sister. Ziggy reflected also that next autumn, in Manhattan, he would have two simultaneous Manhattan productions of Show Boat, his greatest hit. He debated with himself whether to hire famed Comedienne Beatrice Lillie (Lady Peel), and he took counsel with himself, while a continent trembled, whether to produce another Follies. Also he wondered how things would go with Billie Burke when she returned to the stage after long absence, as the star of The Happy Husband (see p. 43).
* A nickname of which he is proud.
* He will not, as unsophisticated parents of ambitious girls may well imagine, command his prospective employes to stand before him naked. He will inspect them when they are dressed and standing still. After this, he sends most of them home. Then he will have the remainder in bathing suits, for a more detailed investigation.
† The name of Ziggy's mother.