Ambassadors

There is, in Manhattan, a softspoken, smoothly tailored little man, with the warmest of hearts, the mildest of blue eyes, the suavest of manners, the nicest of English accents, and the attitude toward life--so far as you would guess to hear him purring of Senor Zuloaga's portraits or the latest

Negroid cabaret in Harlem--of one sitting comfortably back in a downy, plushy divan. He seems so happy.

Yet he is not altogether happy. Every month he has to worry his head and fret and fuss over what there is new to divert gay, witty, accomplished people; ,what new to furnish people who would like to be thought gay, witty, accomplished. The little man is an editor, Mr. Frank Crowninshield of Vanity Fair.

Editor Crowninshield's employer, Publisher Conde Nast, is not one of your editorial Hamlets. Not that he lacks any of Editor Crowninshield's sensibility and finesse, or his modernity in things aesthetic. But Publisher Nast is more practical. For some time he was advertising, then business manager of Collier's Weekly. He now has a string of publications of his own.* His polish is as that of hard ebony beside the soft silk of Mr. Crowninshield.

Manhattan was neither surprised nor puzzled by a socio-aesthetic project of which it was advised last week. The Messrs. Nast and Crowninshield were announced as head promoters of a new type of nocturnal resort, frankly modeled after the Embassy Club of London and intended to cultivate that delectable type of night life so familiar to readers of Author Michael Arlen's novel The Green Hat--iridescent conversation, light drinking (presumably, since intoxication was to be frowned upon), the smartest dancing, a maitre d'hotel who would be at once "a master of tact and a genius for cooking." The entire atmosphere of the place would be "gay, spirited, diverting"; above all, "decent." Their club would be "The Embassy Club of New York," to open in October.

Musing over what it would be like, said Mr. Crowninshield: "Entering, we'll say, the home of a duchess [in London] one might be attracted by the appearance of a distinguished looking man and find him to be a famous pianist. Over in a corner might be a man who had written a play. Cyril Maude, or an actor of his standing, might be observed chatting at another point. And there'd be Lady Diana Manners.

"This mingling of society and those who have achieved something in the arts gives to English society a relish, a zest and a flavor which you can't get in New York, Philadelphia, Boston or Chicago."

Membership ($50 for married couples, $35 for single persons) would be solely by invitation, issued to suitable persons* by a small membership committee.

Said persons appreciative of Editor Crowninshield: "How nice of a busy, well-bred cosmopolitan man like that to become an active figure instead of just an adornment in U. S. society!"

Said persons appreciative of Publisher Nast: "How sensible of the publisher of a magazine for the smart set to project his activities right into its nightly lives!"

*Other Conde Nast publications: Vogue, House and Garden, Royal, Children's Vogue, Vogue Pattern Book.

*A rival organization called simply "The Embassy Club", but open to the public, opened its doors last week.