He is broke.
Again.
So he is in court.
Again.
He tells the judge that he pays alimony and child support when he can. He pays income taxes for his ex-wives. He keeps Vera and Countess Sonia—and Roy Randolph, the Dancing Master—in liquor and linen. He has $200 left from an endowment at the end of each month, and a little over ten times that amount in his bank account.
He looks out at the courtroom and sees the newspapermen writing down every word. He sees his first wife, Lois, and his second wife, Ruth. He does not see Vera because Vera is in hospital, having crashed her rental car into a tree following a police chase. A UP reporter, in a memorable phrase, describes his wife and ex-wives as “triple-threat husband hazards.”
It will be many years before he can smile at this.
He is humiliated. The only consolation is that Judge Lester E. Still, blessed be his name, finds in his favor against Lois, and he does not have to pay her $1,000 a month in child support. But Judge Lester E. Still—blessed, etc.—is not about to let him crawl away without first administering a kick in the pants.
The judge reads the newspapers. The judge hears tales of fights in restaurants, of ambulances called, of sirens in the night. The judge may even know of the Dancing Master who plagues his home, the pale puppet who makes merry for Vera and Countess Sonia and, when all are abed, drifts from room to room, marking the value of the master’s every possession.
The judge tells him that he is a fool.
And he cannot disagree.