Gatsby: Some Help from Google

". . . I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.

'Beauty and the Best . . . Loneliness . . . Old Grocery Horse . . . Brook'n Bridge . . .'" (The Great Gatsby, 38).

Fitzgerald adds quite a few allusions that gracefully place this novel in the Jazz Age. There are references to powerful figures like Morgan and Rockefeller. In Tom's apartment, copies of Town Tattle are on the table at a time when tabloids were becoming very popular (29). The orchestra at Gatsby's mansion plays a song called Jazz History of the World (49). My "things I learned in APUSH" label is slowly but surely climbing up my list of labels.

But what the crap is this at the end of chapter two? Is it even an allusion? I realize that at this point, Nick is completely wasted.  He says that this was the second and final time he ever got drunk, which I think just makes his character more sympathetic (29). But I'd still like to know what he's talking about here. Ready? I'm going to google this quote and see what comes up; hopefully, I can find enough information to do my blog justice.

Oh, I see -- most people seem to think that Nick put Mr. McKee to bed, and the "great portfolio" has pictures in it. Likely, the titles of the pictures are "Beauty and the Beast," "Loneliness," "Old Grocery Horse," and "Brook'n Bridge." That's not very exciting, and if they're allusions, I don't get them. "Brook'n Bridge" kind of sounds like "broken bridge," which could refer to Myrtle's nose.