Around the World With Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis Page A

Bright Young Things. But after a couple of Auntie Mame’s Little Afternoons and Big Evenings—and a stern rebuke from the management—she had to confess that her companions of the past had not kept pace with the times. They were just middle-aged delinquents.
    â€œOh, my little love,” Auntie Mame moaned from beneath her ice cap the day after her third Big Evening, “I’m afraid that I’m in the Wrong Set. My old friends are neither bright nor young any longer.”
    â€œWell, they were certainly trying,” I said.
    â€œ
Trying?
Darling, they were
impossible
! Too Evelyn Waugh for words. No, Patrick, I have reached an age when there should be beauty and dignity in my life. I am no longer Madcap Mame, but Mrs. Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside, a widow—still young and attractive, perhaps—with a certain amount of wealth and position. I also have the crushing responsibility of guiding a young nephew through life and . . .”
    â€œDon’t worry about me, Auntie Mame,” I said. “I’ll be in college this fall and then you can go right on doing . . .”
    â€œDon’t interrupt!” Auntie Mame snapped, setting her ice cap down with a clatter. “As I was saying, these elderly Bright Young Things are wrong for me now. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Oh, we were all mad and gay ten years ago, but today—in the grim cold light of 1937—all those immature, hard-drinking, pleasure-crazed playmates of yesteryear seem too shoddy for words. Look at the way they’ve left this lovely room! Cigarette burns! Glasses overturned! That chandelier hanging by a thread! No, Patrick, my little love, England means to me beauty, dignity, serenity, a sense of the past. . . .”
    Vera, who had been asleep on the sofa for some time, got up and lurched off toward her bedroom, last night’s evening dress trailing raggedly behind her. Vera said a short but unprintable word and slammed the door.
    â€œThat,” Auntie Mame said, “is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about. It is not the sort of London society I wish to present to an impressionable young man such as you, darling. I wish
you
to know a more gracious England—a sovereign nation of rich tradition, of pomp and ceremony. And for that reason, my little love . . .” Auntie Mame paused dramatically and clapped the ice bag back on her head.
    â€œYes, Auntie Mame?”
    â€œAnd for that reason, Patrick,
I
am going to be presented at Court.”
    WHENEVER AUNTIE MAME MADE UP HER MIND TO do something, she got it done in a hurry, and so she didn’t waste any time at getting into Court circles. The first thing she did was to cable New York to have her Rolls-Royce and Ito, her Japanese houseman, shipped over on the
Queen Mary
. It seemed sort of like carrying coals to Newcastle to have a Rolls sent from America to England, and Ito drove so badly that I was a little worried about him in London traffic. But Auntie Mame said that the Rolls and Ito were a Family Tradition and that since Ito had always driven on the left-hand side of the street anyhow, he might find London his Spiritual Home.
    The next thing Auntie Mame did was to get in touch with Lady Gravell-Pitt and then she
really
started moving.
    Just where Auntie Mame ever found Hermione Gravell-Pitt I don’t know—don’t even like to contemplate. All I can tell you is that the day after Auntie Mame’s great declaration I came back from a tour of the Abbey to find Auntie Mame and Lady Gravell-Pitt being arch and ladylike over tea, and I knew that Auntie Mame had entered a New Phase.
    â€œJewels,” Auntie Mame was saying, “will be no problem, Lady Gravell-Pitt.” She flashed her large uncut emerald ring and there was a discreet twinkle of rather good diamonds at her ears.
    â€œOf cawss,” Lady Gravell-Pitt said, her beady eyes taking in the considerable glory of Auntie Mame’s rocks. Then she