which most of the divorce colony were present, and among them, his ex-
wife. Both of them were extremely demonstrative; in fact the entire
party was decidedly affectionate, and the affair was the talk of the
town for months afterwards. After Mr. Dow married the famous beauty,
he found out it was riot all heaven to be the poor husband of a rich
wife, and so he decided to return to the police force. Of course, that
would never do at all, and therefore the fair lady promised to pay him
ten thousand a year, in quarterly installments of $2,500, if he would
consent to be her idle rich husband. This he did until Mrs. Dow II.
found out that hubby was indulging in clandestine meetings with Mrs.
Dow I., and presto, change! the allowance suddenly ceased. After a few
months of separation from his bank roll, having become accustomed to
an easily earned income, Mr. Dow sued his bank, Mrs. Dow II., for the
blue envelope of two quarters of the allowance, and the New York
newspapers just hummed with a fresh scandal. Finally Mrs. Dow II.
tried to get a divorce on the plea that the Nevada divorce was
illegal. Failing in this, there were ways and means found in the East,
and at last they were divorced. It has been rumored that Mr. Dow
thought the old love best after all, and that Mrs. Dow I. has been re-
installed to the place of honor by his side. "True love never did run
smoothly": not even in the police force....
A rather amusing story is told of Elinor Glyn's visit to Reno, not for
a divorce, dear reader, but apparently for atmosphere, as she spent
several months in the most rugged states in the West. One of the
handsome sons of the sagebrush, known as the Beau Brummel of Reno,
became very attentive to the distinguished lady visitor, and when she
expressed a desire to see a real Western shooting scrap, the gentleman
said: "All right; the lady must have anything her heart desires,
doggonit!" and so he staged a regular shooting scrap. And they do say
out there that it was so realistically done that Elinor fainted and
was unconscious for an hour. The "fight" occurred on the train from
Tonopah to Mina. Mr. Beau Brummel had been showing the lady Nevada's
great mining camps: a couple of seats in front of Elinor Glyn and her
escort two men began to quarrel, presumably over a game of cards. The
fight grew until each pulled a six-shooter. There was a shot and a
flash, and one man fell: dead, apparently, while the other stood over
him, wild eyed, his smoking gun in his hand.
I can truly believe this story as I saw the dead gentleman auction off
four times the same basket of roses at a Red Cross benefit, and each
time he got a hundred dollars for the basket... However dead he may
have been, he certainly was not dead on the vine!
Speaking of Beau Brummels, I never found out the name of the gentleman
who came back from Lawton's one evening--or was it morning?--minus his
silk shirt. A lady of the party had taken a fancy to it and suggested
that they auction it off for the benefit of the Red Cross: at that
time America had just declared war on Germany, and the interest in the
Red Cross was at its height. The lady's suggestion was carried out
with enthusiasm. The lucky lady was Mrs. Hall, called "the forty
million dollar divorcee"; she bid seventy-five dollars for the shirt
and wore it to a golf tournament the next day. Let us hope that the
gentleman's linen was as attractive as his shirt, for the shirt was
removed then and there and bestowed upon the fair purchaser.
I met a very charming young couple in Reno whose story rather
interested me. I was not shocked at this case, as I had been in Reno
some time before I was introduced to them, and had heard about it.