“They are way up there,” I said.

“They are,” said Simple, “but Joyce won’t admit it, even if they do give cocktail parties all winter and garden parties all summer.

“Joyce yells, ‘They ain’t no society to me, them and nobody else like them! I know how too many of them got their money and they did not get it right. They got it out of crooked dice, good-time houses, reefers, bootlegging, and not paying off when somebody hits for more than a quarter—like I did once—and haven’t got my money till this day. I do not see how such people rate to be society, their pictures always stuck up on the Society Page of our papers.’”

“Joyce is a pretty strict moralist,” I said.

“Morals is her middle name,” said Simple. “But she says them other folks do not have neither morals or manners.

“I says, ‘Well, at least, they have got money.’

“‘Money is not everything,’ says Joyce.

“‘No,’ I says, ‘but it will do till everything comes along.’

“That makes Joyce mad all over again. ‘Do?’ she hollers. ‘Do for what? Money cannot give back a prostitute her virginity! Neither can money give a P.I. back his good name, nor turn a dope pusher into a Christian. Any woman with money can buy a mink coat, but that does not make her a lady. Any hussy in society can hire a cater to cater a party and roast her a ham and grind it up and ruin it for appetizers when everybody has got an appetite already and would rather have ham sandwiches without calling them hore-do-beers on crackers. I would not care if I served chitterlings,’ says Joyce; ‘I would rather have my good name, even if I never get it in the papers.’

“Man, Joyce really raved—and she looked at me like as if I was in society. And I ain’t never even been in jail—let alone society—but once.”

“What were you in jail for?” I asked.

“Not for doing nothing wrong,” said Simple. “I just happened to be present when they raided a house.”

“What kind of a house?”

“A gambling house.”

“Then you were contributing to crime,” I said, “by supporting the place.”

“I sure did support it,” said Simple, “because they got all I had. But I did not run it. It belonged to Sweet Beak who’s always got his wife’s picture in the society columns nowadays for giving parties.”

“Racketeers are not in the papers just for the parties they give,” I said. “They often donate a lot of money to charity, or marry one actress after another, or open night clubs, or do something sensational. If good people want to be news, they have to do sensational things, too. Just being good is not enough—at least, not for the newspapers.”

“It’s not enough for making money either,” said Simple.

They Come and They Go