Laughing Torso

LAUGHIN G TORSO

not got a fancy dress and had not time to think of
one, so I wore a very fine oyster-coloured evening
dress. Jemmett appeared in very old tattered
trousers, a check shirt, a cap, and a red handkerchief
round his neck. Later on in the evening his braces
burst and I had to stand on a seat and attach the
braces with a safety-pin to his shirt. We found, at
the D6me, Claude McKay, the coloured author;
we took him with us. It was surprising how good
Jemmett was at folding himself up in a taxi. We
took another woman with us as well and we all got
in quite comfortably. When we got to the ball we
found a Pole who was six feet five strutting about
being admired by everybody. When I walked in
with Jemmett the Pole became pale with rage and
nobody took any notice of him at all for the rest of
the evening. I danced with Jemmett. He danced
beautifully, but my head only came up to his chest,
so one could not see anything or anybody while one
was dancing. I found I had lost my hotel key after-
wards, and decided to go to the studio and stay
there. I walked up the long flight of stairs which
was quite dark. I lit a match and saw, to my
surprise, standing motionless outside the studio door,
a man in the uniform of a Samurai Warrior, com-
plete with two swords sticking out, one each side of
him. He explained that he had dressed in the
studio and had left his trousers inside and was wait-
ing for my Pole to come back. We both waited and
finally he arrived. I put on the uniform the next
day and looked very odd in it and the Pole did some
drawings of me.
:'.^;v.-;; .:" ':. ' .• . 240''.''' • ' ,.' • . ' ' . .