A story, no doubt apocryphal, for Mercer himself denies it, has him sporting a monocle in those Village days. Though merely clear glass, it was a distinctive trade mark for an aspiring actor who hoped to imprint himself upon the memories of producers. One day in a bar, so the legend goes, someone put a beer stein with too much force on the monocle and broke it. The innocent malfeasant, filled with that supreme sense of honor found in bars, insisted upon replacing the destroyed monocle -- and did, over the protests of the former owner -- with a square monocle. Mercer is supposed to have refused it with, ``Anyone who wears a square monocle must be affected!''

Everett Miller, then assistant director for the Garrick Gaieties, a Theatre Guild production, needed a lyricist for a song he had written; he just happened not to need any actor at the moment, however. For him Mercer produced the lyric to ``Out of Breath Scared to Death of You,'' introduced in that most successful of all the Gaieties, by Sterling Holloway. This 1930 edition also had songs in it by Vernon Duke and Ira Gershwin, by E. Y. Harburg and Duke, and by Harry Myers. Entrance into such stellar song writing company encouraged the burgeoning song writer to take a wife, Elizabeth Meehan, a dancer in the Gaieties. The Mercers took up residence in Brooklyn, and Mercer found a regular job in Wall Street ``misplacing stocks and bonds.''