Title: "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" - The Illuminating Diary of a Professional Lady
Author: Loos, Anita
Language: English
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                       “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”
             The Illuminating Diary of a Professional Lady

                                   By
                               Anita Loos

                       Intimately Illustrated by
                              RALPH BARTON



                                NEW YORK
                            BONI & LIVERIGHT
                                  1925



                                   To
                              JOHN EMERSON



CONTENTS


        CHAPTER                                 PAGE

        I.      Gentlemen Prefer Blondes          11
        II.     Fate Keeps on Happening           39
        III.    London Is Really Nothing          63
        IV.     Paris Is Devine                   93
        V.      The Central of Europe            131
        VI.     Brains Are Really Everything     175



GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES


CHAPTER ONE

GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES


March 16th:

A gentleman friend and I were dining at the Ritz last evening and he
said that if I took a pencil and a paper and put down all of my
thoughts it would make a book. This almost made me smile as what it
would really make would be a whole row of encyclopediacs. I mean I seem
to be thinking practically all of the time. I mean it is my favorite
recreation and sometimes I sit for hours and do not seem to do anything
else but think. So this gentleman said a girl with brains ought to do
something else with them besides think. And he said he ought to know
brains when he sees them, because he is in the senate and he spends
quite a great deal of time in Washington, d. c., and when he comes into
contract with brains he always notices it. So it might have all blown
over but this morning he sent me a book. And so when my maid brought it
to me, I said to her, “Well, Lulu, here is another book and we have not
read half the ones we have got yet.” But when I opened it and saw that
it was all a blank I remembered what my gentleman acquaintance said,
and so then I realized that it was a diary. So here I am writing a book
instead of reading one.

But now it is the 16th of March and of course it is to late to begin
with January, but it does not matter as my gentleman friend, Mr.
Eisman, was in town practically all of January and February, and when
he is in town one day seems to be practically the same as the next day.

I mean Mr. Eisman is in the wholesale button profession in Chicago and
he is the gentleman who is known practically all over Chicago as Gus
Eisman the Button King. And he is the gentleman who is interested in
educating me, so of course he is always coming down to New York to see
how my brains have improved since the last time. But when Mr. Eisman is
in New York we always seem to do the same thing and if I wrote down one
day in my diary, all I would have to do would be to put quotation marks
for all other days. I mean we always seem to have dinner at the Colony
and see a show and go to the Trocadero and then Mr. Eisman shows me to
my apartment. So of course when a gentleman is interested in educating
a girl, he likes to stay and talk about the topics of the day until
quite late, so I am quite fatigued the next day and I do not really get
up until it is time to dress for dinner at the Colony.

It would be strange if I turn out to be an authoress. I mean at my home
near Little Rock, Arkansas, my family all wanted me to do something
about my music. Because all of my friends said I had talent and they
all kept after me and kept after me about practising. But some way I
never seemed to care so much about practising. I mean I simply could
not sit for hours and hours at a time practising just for the sake of a
career. So one day I got quite tempermental and threw the old mandolin
clear across the room and I have really never touched it since. But
writing is different because you do not have to learn or practise and
it is more tempermental because practising seems to take all the
temperment out of me. So now I really almost have to smile because I
have just noticed that I have written clear across two pages onto March
18th, so this will do for today and tomorrow. And it just shows how
tempermental I am when I get started.



March 19th:

Well last evening Dorothy called up and Dorothy said she has met a
gentleman who gave himself an introduction to her in the lobby of the
Ritz. So then they went to luncheon and tea and dinner and then they
went to a show and then they went to the Trocadero. So Dorothy said his
name was Lord Cooksleigh but what she really calls him is Coocoo. So
Dorothy said why don’t you and I and Coocoo go to the Follies tonight
and bring Gus along if he is in town? So then Dorothy and I had quite a
little quarrel because every time that Dorothy mentions the subject of
Mr. Eisman she calls Mr. Eisman by his first name, and she does not
seem to realize that when a gentleman who is as important as Mr.
Eisman, spends quite a lot of money educating a girl, it really does
not show reverance to call a gentleman by his first name. I mean I
never even think of calling Mr. Eisman by his first name, but if I want
to call him anything at all, I call him “Daddy” and I do not even call
him “Daddy” if a place seems to be public. So I told Dorothy that Mr.
Eisman would not be in town until day after tomorrow. So then Dorothy
and Coocoo came up and we went to the Follies.

So this morning Coocoo called up and he wanted me to luncheon at the
Ritz. I mean these foreigners really have quite a nerve. Just because
Coocoo is an Englishman and a Lord he thinks a girl can waste hours on
him just for a luncheon at the Ritz, when all he does is talk about
some exposition he went on to a place called Tibet and after talking
for hours I found out that all they were was a lot of Chinamen. So I
will be quite glad to see Mr. Eisman when he gets in. Because he always
has something quite interesting to talk about, as for instants the last
time he was here he presented me with quite a beautiful emerald
bracelet. So next week is my birthday and he always has some delightful
surprise on holidays.

I did intend to luncheon at the Ritz with Dorothy today and of course
Coocoo had to spoil it, as I told him that I could not luncheon with
him today, because my brother was in town on business and had the
mumps, so I really could not leave him alone. Because of course if I
went to the Ritz now I would bump into Coocoo. But I sometimes almost
have to smile at my own imagination, because of course I have not got
any brother and I have not even thought of the mumps for years. I mean
it is no wonder that I can write.

So the reason I thought I would take luncheon at the Ritz was because
Mr. Chaplin is at the Ritz and I always like to renew old
acquaintances, because I met Mr. Chaplin once when we were both working
on the same lot in Hollywood and I am sure he would remember me.
Gentlemen always seem to remember blondes. I mean the only career I
would like to be besides an authoress is a cinema star and I was doing
quite well in the cinema when Mr. Eisman made me give it all up.
Because of course when a gentleman takes such a friendly interest in
educating a girl as Mr. Eisman does, you like to show that you
appreciate it, and he is against a girl being in the cinema because his
mother is authrodox.



March 20th:

Mr. Eisman gets in tomorrow to be here in time for my birthday. So I
thought it would really be delightful to have at least one good time
before Mr. Eisman got in, so last evening I had some literary gentlemen
in to spend the evening because Mr. Eisman always likes me to have
literary people in and out of the apartment. I mean he is quite anxious
for a girl to improve her mind and his greatest interest in me is
because I always seem to want to improve my mind and not waste any
time. And Mr. Eisman likes me to have what the French people call a
“salo” which means that people all get together in the evening and
improve their minds. So I invited all of the brainy gentlemen I could
think up. So I thought up a gentleman who is the proffessor of all of
the economics up at Columbia College, and the editor who is the famous
editor of the New York Transcript and another gentleman who is a famous
playright who writes very, very famous plays that are all about Life. I
mean anybody would recognize his name but it always seems to slip my
memory because all of we real friends of his only call him Sam. So Sam
asked if he could bring a gentleman who writes novels from England, so
I said yes, so he brought him. And then we all got together and I
called up Gloria and Dorothy and the gentleman brought their own
liquor. So of course the place was a wreck this morning and Lulu and I
worked like proverbial dogs to get it cleaned up, but Heaven knows how
long it will take to get the chandelier fixed.



March 22nd:

Well my birthday has come and gone but it was really quite depressing.
I mean it seems to me a gentleman who has a friendly interest in
educating a girl like Gus Eisman, would want her to have the biggest
square cut diamond in New York. I mean I must say I was quite
disappointed when he came to the apartment with a little thing you
could hardly see. So I told him I thought it was quite cute, but I had
quite a headache and I had better stay in a dark room all day and I
told him I would see him the next day, perhaps. Because even Lulu
thought it was quite small and she said, if she was I, she really would
do something definite and she said she always believed in the old
addage, “Leave them while you’re looking good.” But he came in at
dinner time with really a very very beautiful bracelet of square cut
diamonds so I was quite cheered up. So then we had dinner at the Colony
and we went to a show and supper at the Trocadero as usual whenever he
is in town. But I will give him credit that he realized how small it
was. I mean he kept talking about how bad business was and the button
profession was full of bolshevicks who make nothing but trouble.
Because Mr. Eisman feels that the country is really on the verge of the
bolshevicks and I become quite worried. I mean if the bolshevicks do
get in, there is only one gentleman who could handle them and that is
Mr. D. W. Griffith. Because I will never forget when Mr. Griffith was
directing Intolerance. I mean it was my last cinema just before Mr.
Eisman made me give up my career and I was playing one of the girls
that fainted at the battle when all of the gentlemen fell off the
tower. And when I saw how Mr. Griffith handled all of those mobs in
Intolerance I realized that he could do anything, and I really think
that the government of America ought to tell Mr. Griffith to get all
ready if the bolshevicks start to do it.

Well I forgot to mention that the English gentleman who writes novels
seems to have taken quite an interest in me, as soon as he found out
that I was literary. I mean he has called up every day and I went to
tea twice with him. So he has sent me a whole complete set of books for
my birthday by a gentleman called Mr. Conrad. They all seem to be about
ocean travel although I have not had time to more than glance through
them. I have always liked novels about ocean travel ever since I posed
for Mr. Christie for the front cover of a novel about ocean travel by
McGrath because I always say that a girl never really looks as well as
she does on board a steamship, or even a yacht.

So the English gentleman’s name is Mr. Gerald Lamson as those who have
read his novels would know. And he also sent me some of his own novels
and they all seem to be about middle age English gentlemen who live in
the country over in London and seem to ride bicycles, which seems quite
different from America, except at Palm Beach. So I told Mr. Lamson how
I write down all of my thoughts and he said he knew I had something to
me from the first minute he saw me and when we become better acquainted
I am going to let him read my diary. I mean I even told Mr. Eisman
about him and he is quite pleased. Because of course Mr. Lamson is
quite famous and it seems Mr. Eisman has read all of his novels going
to and fro on the trains and Mr. Eisman is always anxious to meet
famous people and take them to the Ritz to dinner on Saturday night.
But of course I did not tell Mr. Eisman that I am really getting quite
a little crush on Mr. Lamson, which I really believe I am, but Mr.
Eisman thinks my interest in him is more literary.



March 30th:

At last Mr. Eisman has left on the 20th Century and I must say I am
quite fatigued and a little rest will be quite welcome. I mean I do not
mind staying out late every night if I dance, but Mr. Eisman is really
not such a good dancer so most of the time we just sit and drink some
champagne or have a bite to eat and of course I do not dance with
anyone else when I am out with Mr. Eisman. But Mr. Eisman and Gerry, as
Mr. Lamson wants me to call him, became quite good friends and we had
several evenings, all three together. So now that Mr. Eisman is out of
town at last, Gerry and I are going out together this evening and Gerry
said not to dress up, because Gerry seems to like me more for my soul.
So I really had to tell Gerry that if all the gentlemen were like he
seems to be, Madame Frances’ whole dress making establishment would
have to go out of business. But Gerry does not like a girl to be
nothing else but a doll, but he likes her to bring in her husband’s
slippers every evening and make him forget what he has gone through.

But before Mr. Eisman went to Chicago he told me that he is going to
Paris this summer on professional business and I think he intends to
present me with a trip to Paris as he says there is nothing so
educational as traveling. I mean it did worlds of good to Dorothy when
she went abroad last spring and I never get tired of hearing her
telling how the merry-go-rounds in Paris have pigs instead of horses.
But I really do not know whether to be thrilled or not because, of
course, if I go to Paris I will have to leave Gerry and both Gerry and
I have made up our minds not to be separated from one another from now
on.



March 31st:

Last night Gerry and I had dinner at quite a quaint place where we had
roast beef and baked potato. I mean he always wants me to have food
which is what he calls “nourishing” which most gentlemen never seem to
think about. So then we took a hansom cab and drove for hours around
the park because Gerry said the air would be good for me. It is really
very sweet to have some one think of all those things that gentlemen
hardly ever seem to think about. So then we talked quite a lot. I mean
Gerry knows how to draw a girl out and I told him things that I really
would not even put in my diary. So when he heard all about my life he
became quite depressed and we both had tears in our eyes. Because he
said he never dreamed a girl could go through so much as I, and come
out so sweet and not made bitter by it all. I mean Gerry thinks that
most gentlemen are brutes and hardly ever think about a girl’s soul.

So it seems that Gerry has had quite a lot of trouble himself and he
can not even get married on account of his wife. He and she have never
been in love with each other but she was a suffragette and asked him to
marry her, so what could he do? So we rode all around the park until
quite late talking and philosophizing quite a lot and I finally told
him that I thought, after all, that bird life was the highest form of
civilization. So Gerry calls me his little thinker and I really would
not be surprised if all of my thoughts will give him quite a few ideas
for his novels. Because Gerry says he has never seen a girl of my
personal appearance with so many brains. And he had almost given up
looking for his ideal when our paths seemed to cross each other and I
told him I really thought a thing like that was nearly always the
result of fate.

So Gerry says that I remind him quite a lot of Helen of Troy, who was
of Greek extraction. But the only Greek I know is a Greek gentleman by
the name of Mr. Georgopolis who is really quite wealthy and he is what
Dorothy and I call a “Shopper” because you can always call him up at
any hour and ask him to go shopping and he is always quite delighted,
which very few gentlemen seem to be. And he never seems to care how
much anything costs. I mean Mr. Georgopolis is also quite cultured, as
I know quite a few gentlemen who can speak to a waiter in French but
Mr. Georgopolis can also speak to a waiter in Greek which very few
gentlemen seem to be able to do.



April 1st:

I am taking special pains with my diary from now on as I am really
writing it for Gerry. I mean he and I are going to read it together
some evening in front of the fireplace. But Gerry leaves this evening
for Boston as he has to lecture about all of his works at Boston, but
he will rush right back as soon as possible. So I am going to spend all
of my time improving myself while he is gone. And this afternoon we are
both going to a museum on 5th Avenue, because Gerry wants to show me a
very very beautiful cup made by an antique jeweler called Mr. Cellini
and he wants me to read Mr. Cellini’s life which is a very very fine
book and not dull while he is in Boston.

So the famous playright friend of mine who is called Sam called up this
morning and he wanted me to go to a literary party tonight that he and
some other literary gentlemen are giving to Florence Mills in Harlem
but Gerry does not want me to go with Sam as Sam always insists on
telling riskay stories. But personally I am quite broad minded and I
always say that I do not mind a riskay story as long as it is really
funny. I mean I have a great sense of humor. But Gerry says Sam does
not always select and choose his stories and he just as soon I did not
go out with him. So I am going to stay home and read the book by Mr.
Cellini instead, because, after all, the only thing I am really
interested in, is improving my mind. So I am going to do nothing else
but improve my mind while Gerry is in Boston. I mean I just received a
cable from Willie Gwynn who arrives from Europe tomorrow, but I am not
even going to bother to see him. He is a sweet boy but he never gets
anywhere and I am not going to waste my time on such as him, after
meeting a gentleman like Gerry.



April 2nd:

I seem to be quite depressed this morning as I always am when there is
nothing to put my mind to. Because I decided not to read the book by
Mr. Cellini. I mean it was quite amuseing in spots because it was
really quite riskay but the spots were not so close together and I
never seem to like to always be hunting clear through a book for the
spots I am looking for, especially when there are really not so many
spots that seem to be so amuseing after all. So I did not waste my time
on it but this morning I told Lulu to let all of the house work go and
spend the day reading a book entitled “Lord Jim” and then tell me all
about it, so that I would improve my mind while Gerry is away. But when
I got her the book I nearly made a mistake and gave her a book by the
title of “The Nigger of the Narcissus” which really would have hurt her
feelings. I mean I do not know why authors cannot say “Negro” instead
of “Nigger” as they have their feelings just the same as we have.

Well I just got a telegram from Gerry that he will not be back until
tomorrow and also some orchids from Willie Gwynn, so I may as well go
to the theatre with Willie tonight to keep from getting depressed, as
he really is a sweet boy after all. I mean he never really does
anything obnoxious. And it is quite depressing to stay at home and do
nothing but read, unless you really have a book that is worth bothering
about.



April 3rd:

I was really so depressed this morning that I was even glad to get a
letter from Mr. Eisman. Because last night Willie Gwynn came to take me
to the Follies, but he was so intoxicated that I had to telephone his
club to send around a taxi to take him home. So that left me alone with
Lulu at nine o’clock with nothing to do, so I put in a telephone call
for Boston to talk to Gerry but it never went through. So Lulu tried to
teach me how to play mah jong, but I really could not keep my mind on
it because I was so depressed. So today I think I had better go over to
Madame Frances and order some new evening gowns to cheer me up.

Well Lulu just brought me a telegram from Gerry that he will be in this
afternoon, but I must not meet him at the station on account of all of
the reporters who always meet him at the station wherever he comes
from. But he says he will come right up to see me as he has something
to talk about.



April 4th:

What an evening we had last evening. I mean it seems that Gerry is
madly in love with me. Because all of the time he was in Boston
lecturing to the womens clubs he said, as he looked over the faces of
all those club women in Boston, he never realized I was so beautiful.
And he said that there was only one in all the world and that was me.
But it seems that Gerry thinks that Mr. Eisman is terrible and that no
good can come of our friendship. I mean I was quite surprised, as they
both seemed to get along quite well together, but it seems that Gerry
never wants me to see Mr. Eisman again. And he wants me to give up
everything and study French and he will get a divorce and we will be
married. Because Gerry does not seem to like the kind of life all of us
lead in New York and he wants me to go home to papa in Arkansas and he
will send me books to read so that I will not get lonesome there. And
he gave me his uncle’s Masonic ring, which came down from the time of
Soloman and which he never even lets his wife wear, for our engagement
ring, and this afternoon a lady friend of his is going to bring me a
new system she thought up of how to learn French. But some way I still
seem to be depressed. I mean I could not sleep all night thinking of
the terrible things Gerry said about New York and about Mr. Eisman. Of
course I can understand Gerry being jealous of any gentleman friend of
mine and of course I never really thought that Mr. Eisman was Rudolph
Valentino, but Gerry said it made him cringe to think of a sweet girl
like I having a friendship with Mr. Eisman. So it really made me feel
quite depressed. I mean Gerry likes to talk quite a lot and I always
think a lot of talk is depressing and worries your brains with things
you never even think of when you are busy. But so long as Gerry does
not mind me going out with other gentlemen when they have something to
give you mentally, I am going to luncheon with Eddie Goldmark of the
Goldmark Films who is always wanting me to sign a contract to go into
the cinema. Because Mr. Goldmark is madly in love with Dorothy and
Dorothy is always wanting me to go back in the cinema because Dorothy
says that she will go if I will go.



April 6th:

Well I finally wrote Mr. Eisman that I was going to get married and it
seems that he is coming on at once as he would probably like to give me
his advice. Getting married is really quite serious and Gerry talks to
me for hours and hours about it. I mean he never seems to get tired of
talking and he does not seem to even want to go to shows or dance or do
anything else but talk, and if I don’t really have something definite
to put my mind on soon I will scream.



April 7th:

Well Mr. Eisman arrived this morning and he and I had quite a long
talk, and after all I think he is right. Because here is the first real
opportunity I have ever really had. I mean to go to Paris and broaden
out and improve my writing, and why should I give it up to marry an
author, where he is the whole thing and all I would be would be the
wife of Gerald Lamson? And on top of that I would have to be dragged
into the scandal of a divorce court and get my name smirched. So Mr.
Eisman said that opportunities come to seldom in a girls life for me to
give up the first one I have really ever had. So I am sailing for
France and London on Tuesday and taking Dorothy with me and Mr. Eisman
says that he will see us there later. So Dorothy knows all of the ropes
and she can get along in Paris just as though she knew French and
besides she knows a French gentleman who was born and raised there, who
speaks it like a native and knows Paris like a book. And Dorothy says
that when we get to London nearly everybody speaks English anyway. So
it is quite lucky that Mr. Lamson is out lecturing in Cincinnati and he
will not be back until Wednesday and I can send him a letter and tell
him that I have to go to Europe now but I will see him later perhaps.
So anyway I will be spared listening to any more of his depressing
conversation. So Mr. Eisman gave me quite a nice string of pearls and
he gave Dorothy a diamond pin and we all went to the Colony for dinner
and we all went to a show and supper at the Trocadero and we all spent
quite a pleasant evening.



CHAPTER TWO

FATE KEEPS ON HAPPENING


April 11th:

Well Dorothy and I are really on the ship sailing to Europe as anyone
could tell by looking at the ocean. I always love the ocean. I mean I
always love a ship and I really love the Majestic because you would not
know it was a ship because it is just like being at the Ritz, and the
steward says the ocean is not so obnoxious this month as it generally
is. So Mr. Eisman is going to meet us next month in Paris because he
has to be there on business. I mean he always says that there is really
no place to see the latest styles in buttons like Paris.

So Dorothy is out taking a walk up and down the deck with a gentleman
she met on the steps, but I am not going to waste my time going around
with gentlemen because if I did nothing but go around I would not
finish my diary or read good books which I am always reading to improve
my mind. But Dorothy really does not care about her mind and I always
scold her because she does nothing but waste her time by going around
with gentlemen who do not have anything, when Eddie Goldmark of the
Goldmark Films is really quite wealthy and can make a girl delightful
presents. But she does nothing but waste her time and yesterday, which
was really the day before we sailed, she would not go to luncheon with
Mr. Goldmark but she went to luncheon to meet a gentleman called Mr.
Mencken from Baltimore who really only prints a green magazine which
has not even got any pictures in it. But Mr. Eisman is always saying
that every girl does not want to get ahead and get educated like me.

So Mr. Eisman and Lulu come down to the boat to see me off and Lulu
cried quite a lot. I mean I really believe she could not care any more
for me if she was light and not colored. Lulu has had a very sad life
because when she was quite young a pullman porter fell madly in love
with her. So she believed him and he lured her away from her home to
Ashtabula and deceived her there. So she finally found out that she had
been deceived and she really was broken hearted and when she tried to
go back home she found out that it was to late because her best girl
friend, who she had always trusted, had stolen her husband and he would
not take Lulu back. So I have always said to her she could always work
for me and she is going to take care of the apartment until I get back,
because I would not sublet the apartment because Dorothy sublet her
apartment when she went to Europe last year and the gentleman who
sublet the apartment allowed girls to pay calls on him who were not
nice.

Mr. Eisman has litereally filled our room with flowers and the steward
has had quite a hard time to find enough vases to put them into. I mean
the steward said he knew as soon as he saw Dorothy and I that he would
have quite a heavy run on vases. And of course Mr. Eisman has sent me
quite a lot of good books as he always does, because he always knows
that good books are always welcome. So he has sent me quite a large
book of Etiquette as he says there is quite a lot of Etiquette in
England and London and it would be a good thing for a girl to learn. So
I am going to take it on the deck after luncheon and read it, because I
would often like to know what a girl ought to do when a gentleman she
has just met, says something to her in a taxi. Of course I always
become quite vexed but I always believe in giving a gentleman another
chance.

So now the steward tells me it is luncheon time, so I will go upstairs
as the gentleman Dorothy met on the steps has invited us to luncheon in
the Ritz, which is a special dining room on the ship where you can
spend quite a lot of money because they really give away the food in
the other dining room.



April 12th:

I am going to stay in bed this morning as I am quite upset as I saw a
gentleman who quite upset me. I am not really sure it was the
gentleman, as I saw him at quite a distants in the bar, but if it
really is the gentleman it shows that when a girl has a lot of fate in
her life it is sure to keep on happening. So when I thought I saw this
gentleman I was with Dorothy and Major Falcon, who is the gentleman
Dorothy met on the steps, and Major Falcon noticed that I became upset,
so he wanted me to tell him what was the matter, but it is really so
terrible that I would not want to tell anyone. So I said good night to
Major Falcon and I left him with Dorothy and I went down to our room
and did nothing but cry and send the steward for some champagne to
cheer me up. I mean champagne always makes me feel philosophical
because it makes me realize that when a girl’s life is as full of fate
as mine seems to be, there is nothing else to do about it. So this
morning the steward brought me my coffee and quite a large pitcher of
ice water so I will stay in bed and not have any more champagne until
luncheon time.

Dorothy never has any fate in her life and she does nothing but waste
her time and I really wonder if I did right to bring her with me and
not Lulu. I mean she really gives gentlemen a bad impression as she
talks quite a lot of slang. Because when I went up yesterday to meet
she and Major Falcon for luncheon, I overheard her say to Major Falcon
that she really liked to become intoxicated once in a “dirty” while.
Only she did not say intoxicated, but she really said a slang word that
means intoxicated and I am always having to tell her that “dirty” is a
slang word and she really should not say “dirty.”

Major Falcon is really quite a delightful gentleman for an Englishman.
I mean he really spends quite a lot of money and we had quite a
delightful luncheon and dinner in the Ritz until I thought I saw the
gentleman who upset me and I am so upset I think I will get dressed and
go up on the deck and see if it really is the one I think it is. I mean
there is nothing else for me to do as I have finished writing in my
diary for today and I have decided not to read the book of Ettiquette
as I glanced through it and it does not seem to have anything in it
that I would care to know because it wastes quite a lot of time telling
you what to call a Lord and all the Lords I have met have told me what
to call them and it is generally some quite cute name like Coocoo whose
real name is really Lord Cooksleigh. So I will not waste my time on
such a book. But I wish I did not feel so upset about the gentleman I
think I saw.



April 13th:

It really is the gentleman I thought I saw. I mean when I found out it
was the gentleman my heart really stopped. Because it all brought back
things that anybody does not like to remember, no matter who they are.
So yesterday when I went up on the deck to see if I could see the
gentleman and see if it really was him, I met quite a delightful
gentleman who I met once at a party called Mr. Ginzberg. Only his name
is not Mr. Ginzberg any more because a gentleman in London called Mr.
Battenburg, who is some relation to some king, changed his name to Mr.
Mountbatten which Mr. Ginzberg says really means the same thing after
all. So Mr. Ginsberg changed his name to Mr. Mountginz which he really
thinks is more aristocratic. So we walked around the deck and we met
the gentleman face to face and I really saw it was him and he really
saw it was me. I mean his face became so red it was almost a picture.
So I was so upset I said good-bye to Mr. Mountginz and I started to
rush right down to my room and cry. But when I was going down the
steps, I bumped right into Major Falcon who noticed that I was upset.
So Major Falcon made me go to the Ritz and have some champagne and tell
him all about it.

So then I told Major Falcon about the time in Arkansas when Papa sent
me to Little Rock to study how to become a stenographer. I mean Papa
and I had quite a little quarrel because Papa did not like a gentleman
who used to pay calls on me in the park and Papa thought it would do me
good to get away for awhile. So I was in the business colledge in
Little Rock for about a week when a gentleman called Mr. Jennings paid
a call on the business colledge because he wanted to have a new
stenographer. So he looked over all we colledge girls and he picked me
out. So he told our teacher that he would help me finish my course in
his office because he was only a lawyer and I really did not have to
know so much. So Mr. Jennings helped me quite a lot and I stayed in his
office about a year when I found out that he was not the kind of a
gentleman that a young girl is safe with. I mean one evening when I
went to pay a call on him at his apartment, I found a girl there who
really was famous all over Little Rock for not being nice. So when I
found out that girls like that paid calls on Mr. Jennings I had quite a
bad case of histerics and my mind was really a blank and when I came
out of it, it seems that I had a revolver in my hand and it seems that
the revolver had shot Mr. Jennings.

So this gentleman on the boat was really the District Attorney who was
at the trial and he really was quite harsh at the trial and he called
me names that I would not even put in my diary. Because everyone at the
trial except the District Attorney was really lovely to me and all the
gentlemen in the jury all cried when my lawyer pointed at me and told
them that they practically all had had either a mother or a sister. So
the jury was only out three minutes and then they came back and
acquitted me and they were all so lovely that I really had to kiss all
of them and when I kissed the judge he had tears in his eyes and he
took me right home to his sister. I mean it was when Mr. Jennings
became shot that I got the idea to go into the cinema, so Judge Hibbard
got me a ticket to Hollywood. So it was Judge Hibbard who really gave
me my name because he did not like the name I had because he said a
girl ought to have a name that ought to express her personality. So he
said my name ought to be Lorelei which is the name of a girl who became
famous for sitting on a rock in Germany, So I was in Hollywood in the
cinema when I met Mr. Eisman and he said that a girl with my brains
ought not to be in the cinema but she ought to be educated, so he took
me out of the cinema so he could educate me.

So Major Falcon was really quite interested in everything I talked
about, because he said it was quite a co-instance because this District
Attorney, who is called Mr. Bartlett, is now working for the government
of America and he is on his way to a place called Vienna on some
business for Uncle Sam that is quite a great secret and Mr. Falcon
would like very much to know what the secret is, because the Government
in London sent him to America especially to find out what it was. Only
of course Mr. Bartlett does not know who Major Falcon is, because it is
such a great secret, but Major Falcon can tell me, because he knows who
he can trust. So Major Falcon says he thinks a girl like I ought to
forgive and forget what Mr. Bartlett called me and he wants to bring us
together and he says he thinks Mr. Bartlett would talk to me quite a
lot when he really gets to know me and I forgive him for that time in
Little Rock. Because it would be quite romantic for Mr. Bartlett and I
to become friendly, and gentlemen who work for Uncle Sam generally like
to become romantic with girls. So he is going to bring us together on
the deck after dinner tonight and I am going to forgive him and talk
with him quite a lot, because why should a girl hold a grudge against a
gentleman who had to do it. So Major Falcon brought me quite a large
bottle of perfume and a quite cute imitation of quite a large size dog
in the little shop which is on board the boat. I mean Major Falcon
really knows how to cheer a girl up quite a lot and so tonight I am
going to make it all up with Mr. Bartlett.



April 14th:

Well Mr. Bartlett and I made it all up last night and we are going to
be the best of friends and talk quite a lot. So when I went down to my
room quite late Major Falcon came down to see if I and Mr. Bartlett
were really going to be friends because he said a girl with brains like
I ought to have lots to talk about with a gentleman with brains like
Mr. Bartlett who knows all of Uncle Sam’s secrets.

So I told Major Falcon how Mr. Bartlett thinks that he and I seem to be
like a play, because all the time he was calling me all those names in
Little Rock he really thought I was. So when he found out that I turned
out not to be, he said he always thought that I only used my brains
against gentlemen and really had quite a cold heart. But now he thinks
I ought to write a play about how he called me all those names in
Little Rock and then, after seven years, we became friendly.

So I told Major Falcon that I told Mr. Bartlett I would like to write
the play but I really did not have time as it takes quite a lot of time
to write my diary and read good books. So Mr. Bartlett did not know
that I read books which is quite a co-instance because he reads them
to. So he is going to bring me a book of philosophy this afternoon
called “Smile, Smile, Smile” which all the brainy senators in
Washington are reading which cheers you up quite a lot.

So I told Major Falcon that having a friendship with Mr. Barlett was
really quite enervating because Mr. Bartlett does not drink anything
and the less anybody says about his dancing the better. But he did ask
me to dine at his table, which is not in the Ritz and I told him I
could not, but Major Falcon told me I ought to, but I told Major Falcon
that there was a limit to almost everything. So I am going to stay in
my room until luncheon and I am going to luncheon in the Ritz with Mr.
Mountginz who really knows how to treat a girl.

Dorothy is up on the deck wasting quite a lot of time with a gentleman
who is only a tennis champion. So I am going to ring for the steward
and have some champagne which is quite good for a person on a boat. The
steward is really quite a nice boy and he has had quite a sad life and
he likes to tell me all about himself. I mean it seems that he was
arrested in Flatbush because he promised a gentleman that he would
bring him some very very good scotch and they mistook him for a
bootlegger. So it seems they put him in a prison and they put him in a
cell with two other gentlemen who were very, very famous burglars. I
mean they really had their pictures in all the newspapers and everybody
was talking about them. So my steward, whose real name is Fred, was
very very proud to be in the same cell with such famous burglars. So
when they asked him what he was in for, he did not like to tell them
that he was only a bootlegger, so he told them that he set fire to a
house and burned up quite a large family in Oklahoma. So everything
would have gone alright except that the police had put a dictaphone in
the cell and used it all against him and he could not get out until
they had investigated all the fires in Oklahoma. So I always think that
it is much more educational to talk to a boy like Fred who has been
through a lot and really suffered than it is to talk to a gentleman
like Mr. Bartlett. But I will have to talk to Mr. Bartlett all
afternoon as Major Falcon has made an appointment for me to spend the
whole afternoon with him.



April 15th:

Last night there was quite a maskerade ball on the ship which was
really all for the sake of charity because most of the sailors seem to
have orphans which they get from going on the ocean when the sea is
very rough. So they took up quite a collection and Mr. Bartlett made
quite a long speech in favor of orphans especially when their parents
are sailors. Mr. Bartlett really likes to make speeches quite a lot. I
mean he even likes to make speeches when he is all alone with a girl
when they are walking up and down a deck. But the maskerade ball was
quite cute and one gentleman really looked almost like an imitation of
Mr. Chaplin. So Dorothy and I really did not want to go to the ball but
Mr. Bartlett bought us two scarfs at the little store which is on the
ship so we tied them around our hips and everyone said we made quite a
cute Carmen. So Mr. Bartlett and Major Falcon and the tennis champion
were the Judges. So Dorothy and I won the prizes. I mean I really hope
I do not get any more large size imitations of a dog as I have three
now and I do not see why the Captain does not ask Mr. Cartier to have a
jewelry store on the ship as it is really not much fun to go shopping
on a ship with gentlemen, and buy nothing but imitations of dogs.

So after we won the prizes I had an engagement to go up on the top of
the deck with Mr. Bartlett as it seems he likes to look at the
moonlight quite a lot. So I told him to go up and wait for me and I
would be up later as I promised a dance to Mr. Mountginz. So he asked
me how long I would be dancing till, but I told him to wait up there
and he would find out. So Mr. Mountginz and I had quite a delightful
dance and champagne until Major Falcon found us. Because he was looking
for me and he said I really should not keep Mr. Bartlett waiting. So I
went up on the deck and Mr. Bartlett was up there waiting for me and it
seems that he really is madly in love with me because he did not sleep
a wink since we became friendly. Because he never thought that I really
had brains but now that he knows it, it seems that he has been looking
for a girl like me for years, and he said that really the place for me
when he got back home was Washington d. c. where he lives. So I told
him I thought a thing like that was nearly always the result of fate.
So he wanted me to get off the ship tomorrow at France and take the
same trip that he is taking to Vienna as it seems that Vienna is in
France and if you go on to England you go to far. But I told him that I
could not because I thought that if he was really madly in love with me
he would take a trip to London instead. But he told me that he had
serious business in Vienna that was a very, very great secret. But I
told him I did not believe it was business but that it really was some
girl, because what business could be so important? So he said it was
business for the United States government at Washington and he could
not tell anybody what it was. So then we looked at the moonlight quite
a lot. So I told him I would go to Vienna if I really knew it was
business and not some girl, because I could not see how business could
be so important. So then he told me all about it. So it seems that
Uncle Sam wants some new aeroplanes that everybody else seems to want,
especially England, and Uncle Sam has quite a clever way to get them
which is to long to put in my diary. So we sat up and saw the sun rise
and I became quite stiff and told him I would have to go down to my
room because, after all, the ship lands at France today and I said if I
got off the boat at France to go to Vienna with him I would have to
pack up.

So I went down to my room and went to bed. So then Dorothy came in and
she was up on the deck with the tennis champion but she did not notice
the sun rise as she really does not love nature but always wastes her
time and ruins her clothes even though I always tell her not to drink
champagne out of a bottle on the deck of the ship as it lurches quite a
lot. So I am going to have luncheon in my room and I will send a note
to Mr. Bartlett to tell him I will not be able to get off the boat at
France to go to Vienna with him as I have quite a headache, but I will
see him sometime somewhere else. So Major Falcon is going to come down
at 12 and I have got to thinking over what Mr. Bartlett called me at
Little Rock and I am quite upset. I mean a gentleman never pays for
those things but a girl always pays. So I think I will tell Major
Falcon all about the airoplane business as he really wants to know.
And, after all I do not think Mr. Bartlett is a gentleman to call me
all those names in Little Rock even if it was seven years ago. I mean
Major Falcon is always a gentleman and he really wants to do quite a
lot for us in London. Because he knows the Prince of Wales and he
thinks that Dorothy and I would like the Prince of Wales once we had
really got to meet him. So I am going to stay in my room until Mr.
Bartlett gets off the ship at France, because I really do not seem to
care if I never see Mr. Bartlett again.

So tomorrow we will be at England bright and early. And I really feel
quite thrilled because Mr. Eisman sent me a cable this morning, as he
does every morning, and he says to take advantage of everybody we meet
as traveling is the highest form of education. I mean Mr. Eisman is
always right and Major Falcon knows all the sights in London including
the Prince of Wales so it really looks like Dorothy and I would have
quite a delightful time in London.



CHAPTER THREE

LONDON IS REALLY NOTHING


April 17th:

Well, Dorothy and I are really at London. I mean we got to London on
the train yesterday as the boat does not come clear up to London but it
stops on the beach and you have to take a train. I mean everything is
much better in New York, because the boat comes right up to New York
and I am really beginning to think that London is not so educational
after all. But I did not tell Mr. Eisman when I cabled him last night
because Mr. Eisman really sent me to London to get educated and I would
hate to tell him that London is a failure because we know more in New
York.

So Dorothy and I came to the Ritz and it is delightfully full of
Americans. I mean you would really think it was New York because I
always think that the most delightful thing about traveling is to
always be running into Americans and to always feel at home.

So yesterday Dorothy and I went down to luncheon at the Ritz and we saw
a quite cute little blond girl at the next table and I nudged Dorothy
under the table, because I do not think it is nice to nudge a person on
top of the table as I am trying to teach good manners to Dorothy, So I
said “That is quite a cute little girl so she must be an American
girl.” And sure enough she called the head-waiter with quite an
American accent and she was quite angry and she said to him, I have
been coming to this hotel for 35 years and this is the first time I
have been kept waiting. So I recognized her voice because it was really
Fanny Ward. So we asked her to come over to our table and we were all
three delighted to see each other. Because I and Fanny have known each
other for about five years but I really feel as if I knew her better
because mama knew her 45 years ago when she and mama used to go to
school together and mama used to always follow all her weddings in all
the newspapers. So now Fanny lives in London and is famous for being
one of the cutest girls in London. I mean Fanny is almost historical,
because when a girl is cute for 50 years it really begins to get
historical.

So if mama did not die of hardening of the arterys she and Fanny and I
could have quite a delightful time in London as Fanny loves to shop. So
we went shopping for hats and instead of going to the regular shop we
went to the childrens department and Fanny and I bought some quite cute
hats as childrens hats only cost half as much and Fanny does it all the
time. I mean Fanny really loves hats and she buys some in the
children’s department every week, so she really saves quite a lot of
money.

So we came back to the Ritz to meet Major Falcon because Major Falcon
invited us to go to tea with him at a girls house called Lady Shelton.
So Major Falcon invited Fanny to go with us to, but she was sorry
because she had to go to her music lesson.

So at Lady Sheltons house we met quite a few people who seemed to be
English. I mean some of the girls in London seem to be Ladies which
seems to be the opposite of a Lord. And some who are not Ladies are
honorable. But quite a few are not Ladies or honorable either, but are
just like us, so all you have to call them is “Miss.” So Lady Shelton
was really delighted to have we Americans come to her house. I mean she
took Dorothy and I into the back parlor and tried to sell us some shell
flowers she seems to make out of sea shells for 25 pounds. So we asked
her how much it was in money and it seems it is 125 dollars. I mean I
am really going to have a quite hard time in London with Dorothy
because she really should not say to an English lady what she said. I
mean she should not say to an English lady that in America we use
shells the same way only we put a dry pea under one of them and we call
it a game. But I told Lady Shelton we really did not need any shell
flowers. So Lady Shelton said she knew we Americans loved dogs so she
would love us to meet her mother.

So then she took Dorothy and Major Falcon and I to her mother’s house
which was just around the corner from her house. Because her mother
seems to be called a Countess and raise dogs. So her mother was having
a party too, and she seemed to have quite red hair and quite a lot of
paint for such an elderly lady. So the first thing she asked us was she
asked us if we bought some shell flowers from her daughter. So we told
her no. But she did not seem to act like a Countess of her elderly age
should act. Because she said, “You were right my dears—don’t let my
daughter stick you—they fall apart in less than a week.” So then she
asked us if we would like to buy a dog. I mean I could not stop Dorothy
but she said “How long before the dogs fall apart?” But I do not think
the Countess acted like a Countess ought to act because she laughed
very, very loud and she said that Dorothy was really priceless and she
grabbed Dorothy and kissed her and held her arm around her all the
time. I mean I really think that a Countess should not encouradge
Dorothy or else she is just as unrefined as Dorothy seems to be. But I
told the Countess that we did not need any dog.

So then I met quite a delightful English lady who had a very, very
beautiful diamond tiara in her hand bag because she said that she
thought some Americans would be at the party and it was really a very,
very great bargain. I mean I think a diamond tiara is delightful
because it is a place where I really never thought of wearing diamonds
before, and I thought I had almost one of everything until I saw a
diamond tiara. The English lady who is called Mrs. Weeks said it was in
her family for years but the good thing about diamonds is they always
look new. So I was really very intreeged and I asked her how much it
cost in money and it seems it was $7,500.

So then I looked around the room and I noticed a gentleman who seemed
to be quite well groomed. So I asked Major Falcon who he was and he
said he was called Sir Francis Beekman and it seems he is very, very
wealthy. So then I asked Major Falcon to give us an introduction to one
another and we met one another and I asked Sir Francis Beekman if he
would hold my hat while I could try on the diamond tiara because I
could wear it backwards with a ribbon, on account of my hair being
hobbed, and I told Sir Francis Beekman that I really thought it looked
quite cute. So he thought it did to, but he seemed to have another
engagement. So the Countess came up to me and she is really very
unrefined because she said to me “Do not waste your time on him”
because she said that whenever Sir Francis Beekman spent a haypenny the
statue of a gentleman called Mr. Nelson took off his hat and bowed. I
mean some people are so unrefined they seem to have unrefined thoughts
about everything.

So I really have my heart set on the diamond tiara and I became quite
worried because Mrs. Weeks said she was going to a delightful party
last night that would be full of delightful Americans and it would be
snaped up. So I was so worried that I gave her 100 dollars and she is
going to hold the diamond tiara for me. Because what is the use of
traveling if you do not take advantadge of oportunities and it really
is quite unusual to get a bargain from an English lady. So last night I
cabled Mr. Eisman and I told Mr. Eisman that he does not seem to how
know much it costs to get educated by traveling and I said I really
would have to have $10,000 and I said I hoped I would not have to
borrow the money from some strange English gentleman, even if he might
be very very good looking. So I really could not sleep all night
because of all of my worrying because if I do not get the money to buy
the diamond tiara it may be a quite hard thing to get back $100 from an
English lady.

So now I must really get dressed as Major Falcon is going to take
Dorothy and I to look at all the sights in London. But I really think
if I do not get the diamond tiara my whole trip to London will be quite
a failure.



April 18th:

Yesterday was quite a day and night. I mean Major Falcon came to take
Dorothy and I to see all the sights in London. So I thought it would be
delightful if we had another gentleman and I made Major Falcon call up
Sir Francis Beekman. I mean I had a cable from Mr. Eisman which told me
he could not send me 10,000 dollars but he would send me 1000 dollars
which really would not be a drop in the bucket for the diamond tiara.
So Sir Francis Beekman said that he could not come but I teased him and
teased him over the telephone so he finally said he would come.

So Major Falcon drives his own car so Dorothy sat with him and I sat
with Sir Francis Beekman but I told him that I was not going to call
him Sir Francis Beekman but I was really going to call him Piggie.

In London they make a very, very great fuss over nothing at all. I mean
London is really nothing at all. For instants, they make a great fuss
over a tower that really is not even as tall as the Hickox building in
Little Rock Arkansas and it would only make a chimney on one of our
towers in New York. So Sir Francis Beekman wanted us to get out and
look at the tower because he said that quite a famous Queen had her
head cut off there one morning and Dorothy said “What a fool she was to
get up that morning” and that is really the only sensible thing that
Dorothy has said in London. So we did not bother to get out.

So we did not go to any more sights because they really have delicious
champagne cocktails at a very very smart new restaurant called the Cafe
de Paris that you could not get in New York for neither love or money
and I told Piggie that when you are travelling you really ought to take
advantadges of what you can not do at home.

So while Dorothy and I were in the Cafe de Paris powdering our nose in
the lady’s dressing room we met an American girl who Dorothy knew in
the Follies, but now she is living in London. So she told us all about
London. So it seems the gentlemen in London have quite a quaint custom
of not giving a girl many presents. I mean the English girls really
seem to be satisfied with a gold cigaret holder or else what they call
a ‘bangle’ which means a bracelet in English which is only gold and
does not have any stones in it which American girls would really give
to their maid. So she said you could tell what English gentlemen were
like when you realize that not even English ladys could get anything
out of them. So she said Sir Francis Beekman was really famous all over
London for not spending so much money as most English gentlemen. So
then Dorothy and I said goodbye to Dorothy’s girl friend and Dorothy
said, “Lets tell our two boy friends that we have a headache and go
back to the Ritz, where men are Americans.” Because Dorothy said that
the society of a gentleman like Sir Francis Beekman was to great a
price to pay for a couple of rounds of champagne cocktails. But I told
Dorothy that I always believe that there is nothing like trying and I
think it would be nice for an American girl like I to educate an
English gentleman like Piggie, as I call Sir Francis Beekman.

So then we went back to the table and I almost have to admit that
Dorothy is in the right about Piggie because he really likes to talk
quite a lot and he is always talking about a friend of his who was
quite a famous King in London called King Edward. So Piggie said he
would never never forget the jokes King Edward was always saying and he
would never forget one time they were all on a yacht and they were all
sitting at a table and King Edward got up and said “I don’t care what
you gentlemen do—I’m going to smoke a cigar.” So then Piggie laughed
very, very loud. So of course I laughed very, very loud and I told
Piggie he was wonderful the way he could tell jokes. I mean you can
always tell when to laugh because Piggie always laughs first.

So in the afternoon a lot of lady friends of Mrs. Weeks heard about me
buying the diamond tiara and called us up and asked us to their house
to tea so Dorothy and I went and we took a gentleman Dorothy met in the
lobby who is very, very good looking but he is only an English ballroom
dancer in a cafe when he has a job.

So we went to tea to a lady’s house called Lady Elmsworth and what she
has to sell we Americans seems to be a picture of her father painted in
oil paint who she said was a whistler. But I told her my own father was
a whistler and used to whistle all of the time and I did not even have
a picture of him but every time he used to go to Little Rock I asked
him to go to the photographers but he did not go.

So then we met a lady called Lady Chizzleby that wanted us to go to her
house to tea but we told her that we really did not want to buy
anything. But she said that she did not have anything to sell but she
wanted to borrow five pounds. So we did not go and I am really glad
that Mr. Eisman did not come to London as all the English ladys would
ask him to tea and he would have a whole ship load of shell flowers and
dogs and anteek pictures that do nobody any good.

So last night Piggie and I and Dorothy and the dancer who is called
Gerald went to the Kit Kat Club as Gerald had nothing better to do
because he is out of a job. So Dorothy and I had quite a little quarrel
because I told Dorothy that she was wasting quite a lot of time going
with any gentleman who is out of a job but Dorothy is always getting to
really like somebody and she will never learn how to act. I mean I
always seem to think that when a girl really enjoys being with a
gentleman, it puts her to quite a disadvantage and no real good can
come of it.

Well tonight is going to be quite a night because Major Falcon is going
to take Dorothy and I to a dance at a lady’s house tonight to meet the
Prince of Wales. And now I must get ready to see Piggie because he and
I seem to be getting to be quite good friends even if he has not sent
me any flowers yet.



April 19th:

Last night we really met the Prince of Wales. I mean Major Falcon
called for Dorothy and I at eleven and took us to a ladys house where
the lady was having a party. The Prince of Wales is really wonderful. I
mean even if he was not a prince he would be wonderful, because even if
he was not a prince, he would be able to make his living playing the
ukelele, if he had a little more practice. So the lady came up to me
and told me that the Prince of Wales would like to meet me, so she gave
us an introduction to one another and I was very very thrilled when he
asked me for a dance. So I decided I would write down every word he
said to me in my diary so I could always go back and read it over and
over when I am really old. So then we started to dance and I asked him
if he was still able to be fond of horses, and he said he was. So after
our dance was all over he asked Dorothy for a dance but Dorothy will
never learn how to act in front of a prince. Because she handed me her
fan and she said “Hold this while I slip a new page into English
histry,” right in front of the Prince of Wales. So I was very very
worried while Dorothy was dancing with the Prince of Wales because she
talked to the Prince of Wales all the time and when she got through the
Prince of Wales wrote some of the slang words she is always saying on
his cuff, so if he tells the Queen some day to be ‘a good Elk’ or some
other slang word Dorothy is always saying, the Queen will really blame
me for bringing such a girl into English society. So when Dorothy came
back we had quite a little quarrel because Dorothy said that since I
met the Prince of Wales I was becoming too English. But really, I mean
to say, I often remember papa back in Arkansas and he often used to say
that his grandpa came from a place in England called Australia, so
really, I mean to say, it is no wonder that the English seems to come
out of me sometimes. Because if a girl seems to have an English accent
I really think it is quite jolly.



April 20th:

Yesterday afternoon I really thought I ought to begin to educate Piggie
how to act with a girl like American gentlemen act with a girl. So I
asked him to come up to have tea in our sitting room in the hotel
because I had quite a headache. I mean I really look quite cute in my
pink negligay. So I sent out a bell hop friend of Dorothy and I who is
quite a nice boy who is called Harry and who we talk to quite a lot. So
I gave Harry ten pounds of English money and I told him to go to the
most expensive florist and to buy some very very expensive orchids for
10 pounds and to bring them to our sitting room at fifteen minutes past
five and not to say a word but to say they were for me. So Piggie came
to tea and we were having tea when Harry came in and he did not say a
word but he gave me a quite large box and he said it was for me. So I
opened the box and sure enough they were a dozen very very beautiful
orchids. So I looked for a card, but of course there was no card so I
grabbed Piggie and I said I would have to give him quite a large hug
because it must have been him. But he said it was not him. But I said
it must be him because I said that there was only one gentleman in
London who was so sweet and generous and had such a large heart to send
a girl one dozen orchids like him. So he still said it was not him. But
I said I knew it was him, because there was not a gentleman in London
so really marvelous and so wonderful and such a marvelous gentleman to
send a girl one dozen orchids every day as him. So I really had to
apologize for giving him such a large hug but I told him I was so full
of impulses that when I knew he was going to send me one dozen orchids
every day I became so impulsive I could not help it!

So then Dorothy and Gerald came in and I told them all about what a
wonderful gentleman Piggie turned out to be and I told them when a
gentleman sent a girl one dozen orchids every day he really reminded me
of a prince. So Piggie blushed quite a lot and he was really very very
pleased and he did not say any more that it was not him. So then I
started to make a fuss over him and I told him he would have to look
out because he was really so good looking and I was so full of impulses
that I might even lose my mind some time and give him a kiss. So Piggie
really felt very very good to be such a good looking gentleman. So he
could not help blushing all the time and he could not help grinning all
the time from one ear to another. So he asked us all to dinner and then
he and Gerald went to change their clothes for dinner. So Dorothy and I
had quite a little quarrel after they went because Dorothy asked me
which one of the Jesse James brothers was my father. But I told her I
was not so unrefined that I would waste my time with any gentleman who
was only a ballroom dancer when he had a job. So Dorothy said Gerald
was a gentleman because he wrote her a note and it had a crest. So I
told her to try and eat it. So then we had to get dressed.

So this morning Harry, the boy friend of ours who is the bell hop,
waked me up at ten o’clock because he had a box of one dozen orchids
from Piggie. So by the time Piggie pays for a few dozen orchids, the
diamond tiara will really seem like quite a bargain. Because I always
think that spending money is only just a habit and if you get a
gentleman started on buying one dozen orchids at a time he really gets
very good habits.



April 21st:

Well, yesterday afternoon I took Piggie shopping on a street called
Bond Street. So I took him to a jewelery store because I told him I had
to have a silver picture frame because I had to have a picture of him
to go in it. Because I told Piggie that when a girl gets to know such a
good looking gentleman as him she really wants to have a picture of him
on her dressing table where she can look at it a lot. So Piggie became
quite intreeged. So we looked at all the silver picture frames. But
then I told him that I really did not think a silver picture frame was
good enough for a picture of him because I forgot that they had gold
picture frames until I saw them. So then we started to look at the gold
picture frames. So then it came out that his picture was taken in his
unaform. So I said he must be so good looking in his unaform that I
really did not think even the gold picture frames were good enough but
they did not have any platinum picture frames so we had to buy the best
one we could.

So then I asked him if he could put on his unaform tomorrow because I
would love to see him in his unaform and we could go to tea at Mrs.
Weeks. So he really became very pleased because he grinned quite a lot
and he said that he would. So then I said that poor little I would
really look like nothing at all to be going out with him in his
georgous unaform. So then we started to look at some bracelets but a
lady friend of his who is quite friendly with his wife, who is in their
country house in the country, came in to the store, so Piggie became
quite nervous to be caught in a jewelery store where he has not been
for years and years, so we had to go out.

This morning Gerald called up Dorothy and he said that day after
tomorrow they are having a theatrical garden party to sell things to
people for charity so he asked if Dorothy and I would be one of the
ones who sells things to people for charity. So we said we would.

So now I must telephone Mrs. Weeks and say I will bring Sir Francis
Beekman to tea tomorrow and I hope it all comes out all right. But I
really wish Piggie would not tell so many storys. I mean I do not mind
a gentleman when he tells a great many storys if they are new, but a
gentleman who tells a great many storys and they are all the same
storys is quite enervating. I mean London is really so uneducational
that all I seem to be learning is some of Piggies storys and I even
want to forget them. So I am really becoming jolly well fed up with
London.



April 22nd:

Yesterday Piggie came in his unaform but he was really quite upset
because he had a letter. I mean his wife is coming to London because
she always comes to London every year to get her old clothes made over
as she has a girl who does it very very cheap. So she is going to stay
with the lady who saw us in the jewelery store, because it always saves
money to stay with a friend. So I wanted to cheer Piggie up so I told
him that I did not think the lady saw us and if she did see us, she
really could not believe her eyes to see him in a jewelery store. But I
did not tell him that I think that Dorothy and I had better go to Paris
soon. Because, after all, Piggie’s society is beginning to tell on a
girls nerves. But I really made Piggie feel quite good about his
unaform because I told him I only felt fit to be with him in a diamond
tiara. So then I told him that, even if his wife was in London, we
could still be friends, because I could not help but admire him even if
his wife was in London and I told him I really thought a thing like
that was nearly always the result of fate. So then we went to tea at
Mrs. Weeks. So Piggie arranged with Mrs. Weeks to pay her for the
diamond tiara and she nearly fell dead but she will keep it a secret
because no one would believe it anyway. So now I have the diamond tiara
and I have to admit that everything always turns out for the best. But
I promised Piggie that I would always stay in London and we would
always be friendly. Because Piggie always says that I am the only one
who admires him for what he really is.



April 25th:

Well, we were so busy the last days I did not have time to write in my
diary because now we are on a ship that seems to be quite a small ship
to be sailing to Paris and we will be at Paris this afternoon. Because
it does not take nearly so long to come to Paris as it does to come to
London. I mean it seems quite unusual to think that it takes 6 days to
come to London and only one day to come to Paris.

So Dorothy is quite upset because she did not want to come as she is
madly in love with Gerald and Gerald said that we really ought not to
leave London without going to see England while we happened to be here.
But I told him that if England was the same kind of a place that London
seems to be, I really know to much to bother with such a place. I mean
we had quite a little quarrel because Gerald showed up at the station
with a bangle for Dorothy so I told Dorothy she was well rid of such a
person. So Dorothy had to come with me because Mr. Eisman is paying her
expenses because he wants Dorothy to be my chaperone.

So the last thing in London was the garden party. I sold quite a lot of
red baloons and I sold a red baloon to Harry Lauder the famous Scotch
gentleman who is the famous Scotch tenor for 20 pounds. So Dorothy said
I did not need to buy any ticket to Paris on the boat because if I
could do that, I could walk across the channel.

So Piggy does not know that we have gone but I sent him a letter and
told him I would see him some time again some time. And I was really
glad to get out of our rooms at the Ritz—I mean 50 or 60 orchids really
make a girl think of a funeral. So I cabled Mr. Eisman and I told him
we could not learn anything in London because we knew to much, so if we
went to Paris at least we could learn French, if we made up our mind to
it.

So I am really very very intreeged as I have heard so much about Paris
and I feel that it must be much more educational than London and I can
hardly wait to see the Ritz hotel in Paris.



CHAPTER FOUR

PARIS IS DEVINE


April 27th:

Paris is devine. I mean Dorothy and I got to Paris yesterday, and it
really is devine. Because the French are devine. Because when we were
coming off the boat, and we were coming through the customs, it was
quite hot and it seemed to smell quite a lot and all the French
gentlemen in the customs, were squealing quite a lot. So I looked
around and I picked out a French gentleman who was really in a very
gorgeous uniform and he seemed to be a very, very important gentleman
and I gave him twenty francs worth of French money and he was very very
gallant and he knocked everybody else down and took our bags right
through the custom. Because I really think that twenty Francs is quite
cheap for a gentleman that has got on at least $100 worth of gold braid
on his coat alone, to speak nothing of his trousers.

I mean the French gentlemen always seem to be squealing quite a lot,
especially taxi drivers when they only get a small size yellow dime
called a ‘fifty santeems’ for a tip. But the good thing about French
gentlemen is that every time a French gentleman starts in to squeal,
you can always stop him with five francs, no matter who he is. I mean
it is so refreshing to listen to a French gentleman stop squeaking,
that it would really be quite a bargain even for ten francs.

So we came to the Ritz Hotel and the Ritz Hotel is devine. Because when
a girl can sit in a delightful bar and have delicious champagne
cocktails and look at all the important French people in Paris, I think
it is devine. I mean when a girl can sit there and look at the Dolly
sisters and Pearl White and Maybelle Gilman Corey, and Mrs. Nash, it is
beyond worlds. Because when a girl looks at Mrs. Nash and realizes what
Mrs. Nash has got out of gentlemen, it really makes a girl hold her
breath.

And when a girl walks around and reads all of the signs with all of the
famous historical names it really makes you hold your breath. Because
when Dorothy and I went on a walk, we only walked a few blocks but in
only a few blocks we read all of the famous historical names, like Coty
and Cartier and I knew we were seeing something educational at last and
our whole trip was not a failure. I mean I really try to make Dorothy
get educated and have reverance. So when we stood at the corner of a
place called the Place Vandome, if you turn your back on a monument
they have in the middle and look up, you can see none other than Coty’s
sign. So I said to Dorothy, does it not really give you a thrill to
realize that that is the historical spot where Mr. Coty makes all the
perfume? So then Dorothy said that she supposed Mr. Coty came to Paris
and he smelled Paris and he realized that something had to be done. So
Dorothy will really never have any reverance.

So then we saw a jewelry store and we saw some jewelry in the window
and it really seemed to be a very very great bargain but the price
marks all had francs on them and Dorothy and I do not seem to be
mathematical enough to tell how much francs is in money. So we went in
and asked and it seems it was only 20 dollars and it seems it is not
diamonds but it is a thing called “paste” which is the name of a word
which means imitations. So Dorothy said “paste” is the name of the word
a girl ought to do to a gentleman that handed her one. I mean I would
really be embarrassed, but the gentleman did not seem to understand
Dorothy’s english.

So it really makes a girl feel depressed to think a girl could not tell
that it was nothing but an imitation. I mean a gentleman could deceeve
a girl because he could give her a present and it would only be worth
20 dollars. So when Mr. Eisman comes to Paris next week, if he wants to
make me a present I will make him take me along with him because he is
really quite an inveteran bargain hunter at heart. So the gentleman at
the jewelry store said that quite a lot of famous girls in Paris had
imitations of all their jewelry and they put the jewelry in the safe
and they really wore the imitations, so they could wear it and have a
good time. But I told him I thought that any girl who was a lady would
not even think of having such a good time that she did not remember to
hang on to her jewelry.

So then we went back to the Ritz and unpacked our trunks with the aid
of really a delightful waiter who brought us up some delicious luncheon
and who is called Leon and who speaks english almost like an American
and who Dorothy and I talk to quite a lot. So Leon said that we ought
not to stay around the Ritz all of the time, but we really ought to see
Paris. So Dorothy said she would go down in the lobby and meet some
gentleman to show us Paris. So in a couple of minutes she called up on
the telephone from the lobby and she said “I have got a French bird
down here who is a French title nobleman, who is called a veecount so
come on down.” So I said “How did a Frenchman get into the Ritz.” So
Dorothy said “He came in to get out of the rain and he has not noticed
that it is stopped.” So I said “I suppose you have picked up something
without taxi fare as usual. Why did you not get an American gentleman
who always have money?” So Dorothy said she thought a French gentleman
had ought to know Paris better. So I said “He does not even know it is
not raining.” But I went down.

So the veecount was really delightful after all. So then we rode around
and we saw Paris and we saw how devine it really is. I mean the Eyefull
Tower is devine and it is much more educational than the London Tower,
because you can not even see the London Tower if you happen to be two
blocks away. But when a girl looks at the Eyefull Tower she really
knows she is looking at something. And it would even be very difficult
not to notice the Eyefull Tower.

So then we went to a place called the Madrid to tea and it really was
devine. I mean we saw the Dolley Sisters and Pearl White and Mrs. Corey
and Mrs. Nash all over again.

So then we went to dinner and then we went to Momart and it really was
devine because we saw them all over again. I mean in Momart they have
genuine American jazz bands and quite a lot of New York people which we
knew and you really would think you were in New York and it was devine.
So we came back to the Ritz quite late. So Dorothy and I had quite a
little quarrel because Dorothy said that when we were looking at Paris
I asked the French veecount what was the name of the unknown soldier
who is buried under quite a large monument. So I said I really did not
mean to ask him, if I did, because what I did mean to ask him was, what
was the name of his mother because it is always the mother of a dead
soldier that I always seem to think about more than the dead soldier
that has died.

So the French veecount is going to call up in the morning but I am not
going to see him again. Because French gentlemen are really quite
deceeving. I mean they take you to quite cute places and they make you
feel quite good about yourself and you really seem to have a delightful
time but when you get home and come to think it all over, all you have
got is a fan that only cost 20 francs and a doll that they gave you
away for nothing in a restaurant. I mean a girl has to look out in
Paris, or she would have such a good time in Paris that she would not
get anywheres. So I really think that American gentlemen are the best
after all, because kissing your hand may make you feel very very good
but a diamond and safire bracelet lasts forever. Besides, I do not
think that I ought to go out with any gentlemen in Paris because Mr.
Eisman will be here next week and he told me that the only kind of
gentlemen he wants me to go out with are intelectual gentlemen who are
good for a girls brains. So I really do not seem to see many gentlemen
around the Ritz who seem to look like they would be good for a girl’s
brains. So tomorrow we are going to go shopping and I suppose it would
really be to much to expect to find a gentleman who would look to Mr.
Eisman like he was good for a girls brains and at the same time he
would like to take us shopping.



April 29th:

Yesterday was quite a day. I mean Dorothy and I were getting ready to
go shopping and the telephone rang and they said that Lady Francis
Beekman was down stairs and she wanted to come up stairs. So I really
was quite surprised. I mean I did not know what to say, so I said all
right. So then I told Dorothy and then we put our brains together.
Because it seems that Lady Francis Beekman is the wife of the gentleman
called Sir Francis Beekman who was the admirer of mine in London who
seemed to admire me so much that he asked me if he could make me a
present of a diamond tiara. So it seemed as if his wife must have heard
about it, and it really seemed as if she must have come clear over from
London about it. So there was a very very loud knock at the door so we
asked her to come in. So Lady Francis Beekman came in and she is a
quite large size lady who seems to resemble Bill Hart quite a lot. I
mean Dorothy thinks that Lady Francis Beeckman resembles Bill Hart
quite a lot, only she really thinks she looks more like Bill Hart’s
horse. So it seems that she said that if I did not give her back the
diamond tiara right away, she would make quite a fuss and she would
ruin my reputation. Because she said that something really must be
wrong about the whole thing. Because it seems that Sir Francis Beekman
and she have been married for 35 years and the last present he gave to
her was a wedding ring. So Dorothy spoke up and she said “Lady you
could no more ruin my girl friends reputation than you could sink the
Jewish fleet.” I mean I was quite proud of Dorothy the way she stood up
for my reputation. Because I really think that there is nothing so
wonderful as two girls when they stand up for each other and help each
other a lot. Because no matter how vigarous Lady Francis Beekman seems
to be, she had to realize that she could not sink a whole fleet full of
ships. So she had to stop talking against my reputation.

So then she said she would drag it into the court and she would say
that it was undue influence. So I said to her, “If you wear that hat
into a court, we will see if the judge thinks it took an undue
influence to make Sir Francis Beekman look at a girl.” So then Dorothy
spoke up and Dorothy said “My girl friend is right, Lady. You have got
to be the Queen of England to get away with a hat like that.” So Lady
Francis Beekman seemed to get quite angry. So then she said she would
send for Sir Francis Beekman where he suddenly went to Scotland, to go
hunting when he found out that Lady Francis Beekman had found out. So
Dorothy said “Do you mean that you have left Sir Francis Beekman loose
with all those spendthrifts down in Scotland?” So Dorothy said she
would better look out or he would get together with the boys some night
and simply massacre a haypenny. I mean I always encouradge Dorothy to
talk quite a lot when we are talking to unrefined people like Lady
Francis Beekman, because Dorothy speaks their own languadge to
unrefined people better than a refined girl like I. So Dorothy said,
“You had better not send for Sir Francis Beekman because if my girl
friend really wanted to turn loose on Sir Francis Beekman, all he would
have left would be his title.” So then I spoke right up and said Yes
that I was an American girl and we American girls do not care about a
title because we American girls always say that what is good enough for
Washington is good enough for us. So Lady Francis Beekman really seemed
to get more angry and more angry all of the time.

So then she said that if it was necessary, she would tell the judge
that Sir Francis Beekman went out of his mind when he gave it to me. So
Dorothy said “Lady, if you go into a court and if the judge gets a good
look at you, he will think that Sir Francis Beekman was out of his mind
35 years ago.” So then Lady Francis Beekman said she knew what kind of
a person she had to deal with and she would not deal with any such a
person because she said it hurt her dignity. So Dorothy said “Lady, if
we hurt your dignity like you hurt our eyesight I hope for your sake,
you are a Christian science.” So that seemed to make Lady Francis
Beekman angry. So she said she would turn it all over to her soliciter.
So when she went out she tripped over quite a long train which she had
on her skirt and she nearly fell down. So Dorothy leaned out of the
door and Dorothy called down the hall and said, “Take a tuck in that
skirt Isabel, its 1925.” So I really felt quite depressed because I
felt as if our whole morning was really very unrefined just because we
had to mix with such an unrefined lady as Lady Francis Beekman.



April 30th:

So sure enough yesterday morning Lady Francis Beekman’s solicitor came.
Only he really was not a solicitor, but his name was on a card and it
seems his name is Mons. Broussard and it seems that he is an advocat
because an advocat is a lawyer in the French landguage. So Dorothy and
I were getting dressed and we were in our negligay as usual when there
was quite a loud knock on the door and before we could even say come in
he jumped right into the room. So it seems that he is of French
extraction. I mean Lady Francis Beekman’s solicitor can really squeal
just like a taxi driver. I mean he was squealing quite loud when he
jumped into the room and he kept right on squealing. So Dorothy and I
rushed into the parlor and Dorothy looked at him and Dorothy said,
“This town has got to stop playing jokes on us every morning” because
our nerves could not stand it. So Mons. Broussard handed us his card
and he squealed and squealed and he really waved his arms in the air
quite a lot. So Dorothy said He gives quite a good imitation of the
Moulan Rouge, which is really a red wind mill, only Dorothy said he
makes more noise and he runs on his own wind. So we stood and watched
him for quite a long while, but he seemed to get quite monotonous after
quite a long while because he was always talking in French, which
really means nothing to us. So Dorothy said “Lets see if 25 francs will
stop him, because if 5 francs will stop a taxi driver, 25 francs ought
to stop an advocat.” Because he was making about 5 times as much noise
as a taxi driver and 5 times 5 is 25. So as soon as he heard us start
in to talk about francs he seemed to calm down quite a little. So
Dorothy got her pocket book and she gave him 25 francs. So then he
stopped squealing and he put it in his pocket, but then he got out
quite a large size handkerchief with purple elefants on it and he
started in to cry. So Dorothy really got discouraged and she said,
“Look here, you have given us a quite an amusing morning but if you
keep that up much longer, wet or dry, out you go.”

So then he started in to pointing at the telephone and he seemed to
want to use the telephone and Dorothy said, “If you think you can get a
number over that thing, go to it, but as far as we have found out, it
is a wall bracket.” So then he started in to telephone so Dorothy and I
went about our business to get dressed. So when he finished telephoning
he kept running to my door and then he kept running to Dorothy’s door,
and he kept on crying and talking a lot, but he seemed to have lost all
of his novelty to us so we paid no more attention to him.

So finally there was another loud knock on the door so we heard him
rush to the door so we both went in to the parlor to see what it was
and it really was a sight. Because it was another Frenchman. So the new
Frenchman rushed in and he yelled Papa and he kissed him. So it seems
that it was his son because his son is really his papa’s partner in the
advocat business. So then his papa talked quite a lot and then he
pointed at I and Dorothy. So then his son looked at us and then his son
let out quite a large size squeal, and he said in French “May papa,
elles sont sharmant.” So it seems he was telling his papa in French
that we were really charming. So then Mons. Broussard stopped crying
and put on his glasses and took a good look at us. So then his son put
up the window shade, so his papa could get a better look at us. So when
his papa had finished looking at us he really became delighted. So he
became all smiles and he pinched our cheeks and he kept on saying
Sharmant all of the time because Sharmant means charming in the French
languadge. So then his son broke right out into english and he really
speaks english as good as an American. So then he told us his papa
telephoned for him to come over because we did not seem to understand
what his papa was saying to us. So it seems that Mons. Broussard had
been talking to us in english all of the time but we did not seem to
understand his kind of english. So Dorothy said, “If what your papa was
talking in was english, I could get a gold medal for my greek.” So then
his son told his papa and his papa laughed very very loud and he
pinched Dorothys cheek and he was very delighted even if the joke was
on him. So then Dorothy and I asked his son what he was saying, when he
was talking to us in english and his son said he was telling us all
about his client, Lady Francis Beekman. So then we asked his son why
his papa kept crying. So then his son said his papa kept crying because
he was thinking about Lady Francis Beekman. So Dorothy said, “If he
cries when he thinks about her, what does he do when he looks at her?”
So then his son explained to his papa what Dorothy said. So then Mons.
Broussard laughed very very loud, so then he kissed Dorothy’s hand, so
he said, after that, we would all really have to have a bottle of
champagne. So he went to the telephone and ordered a bottle of
champagne.

So then his son said to his papa, “Why do we not ask the charming
ladies to go out to Fountainblo to-day.” So his papa said it would be
charming. So then I said, “How are we going to tell you gentlemen
apart, because if it is the same in Paris as it is in America, you
would both seem to be Monshure Broussard.” So then we got the idea to
call them by their first name. So it seems that his son’s name is Louie
so Dorothy spoke up and said, “I hear that they number all of you
Louies over here in Paris.” Because a girl is always hearing some one
talk about Louie the sixteenth who seemed to be in the anteek furniture
business. I mean I was surprised to hear Dorothy get so historical so
she may really be getting educated in spite of everything. But Dorothy
told Louie he need not try to figure out his number because she got it
the minute she looked at him. So it seems his papa’s name is Robber,
which means Robert in French. So Dorothy started in to think about her
25 francs and she said to Robber, “Your mother certainly knew her
grammer when she called you that.”

So Dorothy said we might as well go out to Fountainblo with Louie and
Robber if Louie would take off his yellow spats that were made out of
yellow shammy skin with pink pearl buttons. Because Dorothy said, “Fun
is fun but no girl wants to laugh all of the time.” So Louie is really
always anxious to please, so he took off his spats but when he took off
his spats, we saw his socks and when we saw his socks we saw that they
were Scotch plaid with small size rainbows running through them. So
Dorothy looked at them a little while and she really became quite
discouraged and she said, “Well Louie, I think you had better put your
spats back on.”

So then Leon, our friend who is the waiter, came in with the bottle of
champagne. So while he was opening the bottle of champagne Louie and
Robber talked together in French quite a lot and I really think I had
ought to find out what they said in French because it might be about
the diamond tiara. Because French gentlemen are very very gallant, but
I really do not think a girl can trust one of them around a corner. So,
when I get a chance, I am going to ask Leon what they said.

So then we went to Fountainblo and then we went to Momart and we got
home very late, and we really had quite a delightful day and night,
even if we did not go out shopping and buy anything. But I really think
we ought to do more shopping because shopping really seems to be what
Paris is principaly for.



May 1st:

Well this morning I sent for Leon, who is Dorothy and my waiter friend,
and I asked him what Louie and Robber said in French. So it seems that
they said in French that we seemed to attract them very very much
because they really thought that we were very very charming, and they
had not met girls that were so charming in quite a long time. So it
seems that they said that they would ask us out a lot and that they
would charge up all the bills to Lady Francis Beekman because they
would watch for their chance and they would steal the diamond tiara. So
then they said that even if they could not steal it from us, we were
really so charming that it would be delightful to go around with us,
even if they could not steal from us. So no matter what happens they
really could not lose. Because it seems that Lady Francis Beekman would
be glad to pay all the bills when they told her they had to take us out
a lot so they could watch for their chance and steal it. Because Lady
Francis Beekman is the kind of a wealthy lady that does not spend money
on anything else but she will always spend money on a law suit. And she
really would not mind spending the money because it seems that
something either I or Dorothy said to Lady Francis Beekman seemed to
make her angry.

So then I decided it was time to do some thinking and I really thought
quite a lot. So I told Dorothy I thought I would put the real diamond
tiara in the safe at the Ritz and then I would buy an imitation of a
diamond tiara at the jewelry store that has the imitations that are
called paste. So then I would leave the imitation of the diamond tiara
lying around, so Louie and Robber could see how careless I seem to be
with it so then they would get full of encouradgement. So when we go
out with Louie and Robber I could put it in my hand bag and I could
take it with me so Louie and Robber could always feel that the diamond
tiara was within reach. So then Dorothy and I could get them to go
shopping and we could get them to spend quite a lot and every time they
seemed to get discouradged, I could open my hand bag, and let them get
a glimpse of the imitation of a diamond tiara and they would become
more encouradged and then they would spend some more money. Because I
even might let them steal it at the last, because they were really
charming gentlemen after all and I really would like to help Louie and
Robber. I mean it would be quite amusing for them to steal it for Lady
Francis Beekman and she would have to pay them quite a lot and then she
would find out it was only made out of paste after all. Because Lady
Francis Beekman has never seen the real diamond tiara and the imitation
of a diamond tiara would really deceive her, at least until Louie and
Robber got all of their money for all of the hard work they did. I mean
the imitation of a diamond tiara would only cost about 65 dollars and
what is 65 dollars if Dorothy and I could do some delightful shopping
and get some delightful presents that would even seem more delightful
when we stopped to realize that Lady Francis Beekman paid for them. And
it would teach Lady Francis Beekman a lesson not to say what she said
to two American girls like I and Dorothy, who were all alone in Paris
and had no gentleman to protect them.

So when I got through telling Dorothy what I thought up, Dorothy looked
at me and looked at me and she really said she thought my brains were a
miracle. I mean she said my brains reminded her of a radio because you
listen to it for days and days and you get discouradged and just when
you are getting ready to smash it, something comes out that is a
masterpiece.

So then Louie called us up so Dorothy told him that we thought it would
be delightful if he and Robber would take us out shopping tomorrow
morning. So then Louie asked his papa and his papa said they would. So
then they asked us if we would like to go to see a play called The
Foley Bergere tonight. So he said that all of the French people who
live in Paris are always delighted to have some Americans, so it will
give them an excuse to go to the Foley Bergere. So we said we would go.
So now Dorothy and I are going out shopping to buy the imitation of a
diamond tiara and we are going out window shopping to pick out where we
would like Louie and Robber to take us shopping tomorrow.

So I really think that everything always works out for the best.
Because after all, we really need some gentlemen to take us around
until Mr. Eisman gets to Paris and we could not go around with any
really attractive gentlemen because Mr. Eisman only wants me to go out
with gentlemen that have brains. So I said to Dorothy that, even if
Louie and Robber do not look so full of brains, we could tell Mr.
Eisman that all we were learning from them was French. So even if I
have not seemed to learn French yet, I have really almost learned to
understand Robbers english so when Robber talks in front of Mr. Eisman
and I seem to understand what he is saying, Mr. Eisman will probably
think I know French.



May 2nd:

So last night we went to the Foley Bergere and it really was devine. I
mean it was very very artistic because it had girls in it that were in
the nude. So one of the girls was a friend of Louie and he said that
she was a very very nice girl, and that she was only 18 years of age.
So Dorothy said, “She is slipping it over on you Louie, because how
could a girl get such dirty knees in only 18 years?” So Louie and
Robber really laughed very very loud. I mean Dorothy was very unrefined
at the Foley Bergere. But I always think that when girls are in the
nude it is very artistic and if you have artistic thoughts you think it
is beautiful and I really would not laugh in an artistic place like the
Foley Bergere.

So I wore the imitation of a diamond tiara to the Foley Bergere. I mean
it really would deceeve an expert and Louie and Robber could hardly
take their eyes off of it. But they did not really annoy me because I
had it tied on very very tight. I mean it would be fatal if they got
the diamond tiara before Dorothy and I took them shopping a lot.

So we are all ready to go shopping this morning and Robber was here
bright and early and he is in the parlor with Dorothy and we are
waiting for Louie. So I left the daimond tiara on the table in the
parlor so Robber could see how careless I really am with everything but
Dorothy is keeping her eye on Robber. So I just heard Louie come in
because I heard him kissing Robber. I mean Louie is always kissing
Robber and Dorothy told Louie that if he did not stop kissing Robber,
people would think that he painted batiks.

So now I must join the others and I will put the diamond tiara in my
hand bag so that Louie and Robber will feel that it is always around
and we will all go shopping. And I almost have to smile when I think of
Lady Francis Beekman.



May 3rd:

Yesterday was really delightful. I mean Louie and Robber bought Dorothy
and I some delightful presents. But then they began to run out of all
the franks they had with them, so they began to get discouradged but
just as soon as they began to get discouradged, I gave Robber my hand
bag to hold while I went to the fitting room to try on a blouse. So he
was cheered up quite a lot, but of course Dorothy stayed with them and
kept her eye on Robber so he did not get a chance. But it really
cheered him up quite a lot to even hold it.

So after all their franks were gone, Robber said he would have to
telephone to some one, so I suppose he telephoned to Lady Francis
Beekman and she must have said All right because Robber left us at a
place called the Cafe de la Paix because he had to go on an errand and
when he came back from his errand he seemed to have quite a lot more
franks. So then they took us to luncheon so that after luncheon we
could go out shopping some more.

But I am really learning quite a lot of French in spite of everything.
I mean if you want delicious chicken and peas for luncheon all you have
to say is “pettypas” and “pulle.” I mean French is really very easy,
for instance the French use the word “sheik” for everything, while we
only seem to use it for gentlemen when they seem to resemble Rudolf
Valentino.

So while we were shopping in the afternoon I saw Louie get Dorothy off
in a corner and whisper to her quite a lot. So then I saw Robber get
her off in a corner and whisper to her quite a lot. So when we got back
to the Ritz, Dorothy told me why they whispered to her. So it seems
when Louie whispered to Dorothy, Louie told Dorothy that if she would
steal the diamond tiara from me and give it to him and not let his papa
know, he would give her 1000 franks. Because it seems that Lady Francis
Beekman has got her heart set on it and she will pay quite a lot for it
because she is quite angry and when she really gets as angry as she is,
she is only a woman with one idea. So if Louie could get it and his
papa would not find it out, he could keep all the money for himself. So
it seems that later on, when Robber was whispering to Dorothy, he was
making her the same proposition for 2000 franks so that Louie would not
find out and Robber could keep all the money for himself. So I really
think it would be delightful if Dorothy could make some money for
herself because it might make Dorothy get some ambishions. So tomorrow
morning Dorothy is going to take the diamond tiara and she is going to
tell Louie that she stole it and she is going to sell it to Louie. But
she will make him hand over the money first and then, just as she is
going to hand over the diamond tiara, I am going to walk in on them and
say, “Oh there is my diamond tiara. I have been looking for it
everywhere.” So then I will get it back. So then she will tell him that
she might just as well keep the 1000 franks because she will steal it
for him again in the afternoon. So in the afternoon she is going to
sell it to Robber and I really think we will let Robber keep it.
Because I am quite fond of Robber. I mean he is quite a sweet old
gentleman and it is really refreshing the way he and his son love one
another. Because even if it is unusual for an American to see a French
gentleman always kissing his father, I really think it is refreshing
and I think that we Americans would be better off if we American
fathers and sons would love one another more like Louie and Robber.

So Dorothy and I have quite a lot of delightful hand bags and stockings
and handkerchiefs and scarfs and things and some quite cute models of
evening gowns that are all covered with imitations of diamonds, only
they do not call them “paste” when they are on a dress but they call
them “diamonteys” and I really think a girl looks quite cute when she
is covered all over with “diamonteys.”



May 5th:

So yesterday morning Dorothy sold the imitation of a diamond tiara to
Louie. So then we got it back. So in the afternoon we all went out to
Versigh. I mean Louie and Robber were quite delighted not to go
shopping any more so I suppose that Lady Francis Beekman really thinks
that there is a limit to almost everything. So I took Louie for a walk
at Versigh so that Dorothy would have a chance to sell it to Robber. So
then she sold it to Robber. So then he put it in his pocket. But when
we were coming home I got to thinking things over and I really got to
thinking that an imitation of a diamond tiara was quite a good thing to
have after all. I mean especially if a girl goes around a lot in Paris,
with admirers who are of the French extraction. And after all, I really
do not think a girl ought to encouradge Robber to steal something from
two American girls who are all alone in Paris and have no gentleman to
protect them. So I asked Dorothy which pocket Robber put it in, so I
sat next to him in the automobile coming home and I took it out.

So we were in quite a quaint restaurant for dinner when Robber put his
hand in his pocket and then he started in to squeal once more. So it
seems he had lost something, so he and Louie had one of their regular
squealing and shoulder shrugging matches. But Louie told his papa that
he did not steal it out of his papa’s pocket. But then Robber started
in to cry to think that his son would steal something out of his own
papa’s pocket. So after Dorothy and I had had about all we could stand,
I told them all about it. I mean I really felt sorry for Robber so I
told him not to cry any more because it was nothing but paste after
all. So then I showed it to them. So then Louie and Robber looked at
Dorothy and I and they really held their breath. So I suppose that most
of the girls in Paris do not have such brains as we American girls.

So after it was all over, Louie and Robber seemed to be so depressed
that I really felt sorry for them. So I got an idea. So I told them
that we would all go out tomorrow to the imitation of a jewelry store
and they could buy another imitation of a diamond tiara to give to Lady
Francis Beekman and they could get the man in the jewelry store to put
on the bill that it was a hand bag and they could charge the bill to
Lady Francis Beekman along with the other expenses. Because Lady
Francis Beekman had never seen the real diamond tiara anyway. So
Dorothy spoke up and Dorothy said that as far as Lady Francis Beekman
would know about diamonds, you could nick off a piece of ice and give
it to her, only it would melt. So then Robber looked at me and looked
at me, and he reached over and kissed me on the forehead in a way that
was really full of reverance.

So then we had quite a delightful evening. I mean because we all seem
to understand one another because, after all, Dorothy and I could
really have a platonick friendship with gentlemen like Louie and
Robber. I mean there seems to be something common between us,
especially when we all get to thinking about Lady Francis Beekman.

So they are going to charge Lady Francis Beekman quite a lot of money
when they give her the imitation of a diamond tiara and I told Robber
if she seems to complane, to ask her, if she knew that Sir Francis
Beekman sent me 10 pounds worth of orchids every day while we were in
London. So that would make her so angry that she would be glad to pay
almost anything to get the diamond tiara.

So when Lady Francis Beekman pays them all the money, Louie and Robber
are going to give us a dinner in our honor at Ciros. So when Mr. Eisman
gets here on Saturday, Dorothy and I are going to make Mr. Eisman give
Louie and Robber a dinner in their honor at Ciros because of the way
they helped us when we were two American girls all alone in Paris and
could not even speak the French landguage.

So Louie and Robber asked us to come to a party at their sister’s house
today but Dorothy says we had better not go because it is raining and
we both have brand new umbrellas that are quite cute and Dorothy says
she would not think of leaving a brand new umbrella in a French lady’s
hall and it is no fun to hang on to an umbrella all the time you are at
a party. So we had better be on the safe side and stay away. So we
called up Louie and told him we had a headache but we thanked him for
all of his hospitality. Because it is the way all the French people
like Louie and Robber are so hospitable to we Americans that really
makes Paris so devine.



CHAPTER FIVE

THE CENTRAL OF EUROPE


May 16th:

I really have not written in my diary for quite a long time, because
Mr. Eisman arrived in Paris and when Mr. Eisman is in Paris we really
do not seem to do practically anything else but the same thing.

I mean we go shopping and we go to a show and we go to Momart and when
a girl is always going with Mr. Eisman nothing practically happens. And
I did not even bother to learn any more French because I always seem to
think it is better to leave French to those that can not do anything
else but talk French. So finally Mr. Eisman seemed to lose quite a lot
of interest in all of my shopping. So he heard about a button factory
that was for sale quite cheaply in Vienna and as Mr. Eisman is in the
button profession, he thought it would be a quite good thing to have a
button factory in Vienna so he went to Vienna and he said he did not
care if he did not ever see the rue de la Paix again. So he said if he
thought Vienna would be good for a girl’s brains, he would send for
Dorothy and I and we could meet him at Vienna and learn something.
Because Mr. Eisman really wants me to get educated more than anything
else, especially shopping.

So now we have a telegram, and Mr. Eisman says in the telegram for
Dorothy and I to take an oriental express because we really ought to
see the central of Europe because we American girls have quite a lot to
learn in the central of Europe. So Dorothy says if Mr. Eisman wants us
to see the central of Europe she bets there is not a rue de la Paix in
the whole central of Europe.

So Dorothy and I are going to take an oriental express tomorrow and I
really think it is quite unusual for two American girls like I and
Dorothy to take an oriental express all alone, because it seems that in
the Central of Europe they talk some other kinds of landguages which we
do not understand besides French. But I always think that there is
nearly always some gentleman who will protect two American girls like I
and Dorothy who are all alone and who are traveling in the Central of
Europe to get educated.



May 17th:

So now we are on an oriental express and everything seems to be quite
unusual. I mean Dorothy and I got up this morning and we looked out of
the window of our compartment and it was really quite unusual. Because
it was farms, and we saw quite a lot of girls who seemed to be putting
small size hay stacks onto large size hay stacks while their husbands
seemed to sit at a table under quite a shady tree and drink beer. Or
else their husbands seemed to sit on a fence and smoke their pipe and
watch them. So Dorothy and I looked at two girls who seemed to be
ploughing up all of the ground with only the aid of a cow and Dorothy
said, “I think we girls have gone one step to far away from New York,
because it begins to look to me as if the Central of Europe is no
country for we girls.” So we both became quite worried. I mean I became
quite depressed because if this is what Mr. Eisman thinks we American
girls ought to learn I really think it is quite depressing. So I do not
think we care to meet any gentlemen who have been born and raised in
the Central of Europe. I mean the more I travel and the more I seem to
see other gentlemen the more I seem to think of American gentlemen.

So now I am going to get dressed and go to the dining car and look for
some American gentleman and hold a conversation, because I really feel
so depressed. I mean Dorothy keeps trying to depress me because she
keeps saying that I will probably end up in a farm in the Central of
Europe doing a sister act with a plough. Because Dorothy’s jokes are
really very unrefined and I think that I will feel much better if I go
to the dining car and have some luncheon.



Well I went to the dining car and I met a gentleman who was quite a
delightful American gentleman, I mean it was quite a co-instance,
because we girls have always heard about Henry Spoffard and it was
really nobody else but the famous Henry Spoffard, who is the famous
Spoffard family, who is a very very fine old family who is very very
wealthy. I mean Mr. Spoffard is one of the most famous familys in New
York and he is not like most gentlemen who are wealthy, but he works
all of the time for the good of the others. I mean he is the gentleman
who always gets his picture in all of the newspapers because he is
always senshuring all of the plays that are not good for peoples
morals. And all of we girls remember the time when he was in the Ritz
for luncheon and he met a gentleman friend of his and the gentleman
friend had Peggy Hopkins Joyce to luncheon and he introduced Peggy
Hopkins Joyce to Mr. Spoffard and Mr. Spoffard turned on his heels and
walked away. Because Mr. Spoffard is a very very famous Prespyterian
and he is really much to Prespyterian to meet Peggy Hopkins Joyce. I
mean it is unusual to see a gentleman who is such a young gentleman as
Mr. Spoffard be so Prespyterian, because when most gentlemen are 35
years of age their minds nearly always seem to be on something else.

So when I saw no one else but the famous Mr. Spoffard I really became
quite thrilled. Because all of we girls have tried very hard to have an
introduction to Henry Spoffard and it was quite unusual to be shut up
on a train in the Central of Europe with him. So I thought it would be
quite unusual for a girl like I to have a friendship with a gentleman
like Mr. Spoffard, who really does not even look at a girl unless she
at least looks like a Prespyterian. And I mean our family in Little
Rock were really not so Prespyterians.

So I thought I would sit at his table. So then I had to ask him about
all of the money because all of the money they use in the Central of
Europe has not even got so much sense to it as the kind of franks they
use in Paris. Because it seems to be called kronens and it seems to
take quite a lot of them because it takes 50,000 of them to even buy a
small size package of cigarettes and Dorothy says if the cigarettes had
tobacco in them, we couldn’t lift enough kronens over a counter to pay
for a package. So this morning Dorothy and I asked the porter to bring
us a bottle of champagne and we really did not know what to give him
for a tip. So Dorothy said for me to take one of the things called a
one million kronens and she would take one of them called a one million
kronens and I would give him mine first and if he gave me quite a dirty
look, she would give him hers. So after we paid for the bottle of
champagne I gave him my one million kronens and before we could do
anything else he started in to grabbing my hand and kissing my hand and
getting down on his knees. So we finally had to push him right out of
the compartment. So one million kronens seemed to be enough. So I told
Mr. Spoffard how we did not know what to give the porter when he
brought us our bottle of minral water. So then I asked him to tell me
all about all of the money because I told him I always seem to think
that a penny earned was a penny saved. So it really was quite unusual
because Mr. Spoffard said that that was his favorite motto.



So then we got to talking quite a lot and I told him that I was
traveling to get educated and I told him I had a girl with me who I was
trying to reform because I thought if she would put her mind more on
getting educated, she would get more reformed. Because after all Mr.
Spoffard will have to meet Dorothy sooner or later and he might wonder
what a refined girl like I was doing with a girl like Dorothy. So Mr.
Spoffard really became quite intreeged. Because Mr. Spoffard loves to
reform people and he loves to senshure everything and he really came
over to Europe to look at all the things that Americans come over to
Europe to look at, when they really should not look at them but they
should look at all of the museums instead. Because if that is all we
Americans come to Europe to look at, we should stay home and look at
America first. So Mr. Spoffard spends all of his time looking at things
that spoil peoples morals. So Mr. Spoffard really must have very very
strong morals or else all the things that spoil other peoples morals
would spoil his morals. But they do not seem to spoil Mr. Spoffards
morals and I really think it is wonderful to have such strong morals.
So I told Mr. Spoffard that I thought that civilization is not what it
ought to be and we really ought to have something else to take its
place.

So Mr. Spoffard said that he would come to call on Dorothy and I in our
compartment this afternoon and we would talk it all over, if his mother
does not seem to need him in her compartment. Because Mr. Spoffards
mother always travels with Mr. Spoffard and he never does anything
unless he tells his mother all about it, and asks his mother if he
ought to. So he told me that that is the reason he has never got
married, because his mother does not think that all of the flappers we
seem to have nowadays are what a young man ought to marry when a young
man is full of so many morals as Mr. Spoffard seems to be full of. So I
told Mr. Spoffard that I really felt just like his mother feels about
all of the flappers because I am an old fashioned girl.

So then I got to worrying about Dorothy quite a lot because Dorothy is
really not so old-fashioned and she might say something in front of Mr.
Spoffard that might make Mr. Spoffard wonder what such an old-fashioned
girl as I was doing with such a girl as Dorothy. So I told him how I
was having quite a hard time reforming Dorothy and I would like to have
him meet Dorothy so he could tell me if he really thinks I am wasting
quite a lot of time trying to reform a girl like Dorothy. So then he
had to go to his mother. So I really hope that Dorothy will act more
reformed than she usually acts in front of Mr. Spoffard.

Well Mr. Spoffard just left our compartment so he really came to pay a
call on us after all. So Mr. Spoffard told us all about his mother and
I was really very very intreeged because if Mr. Spoffard and I become
friendly he is the kind of a gentleman that always wants a girl to meet
his mother. I mean if a girl gets to know what kind of a mother a
gentlemans mother is like, she really knows more what kind of a
conversation to use on a gentleman’s mother when she meets her. Because
a girl like I is really always on the verge of meeting gentlemen’s
mothers. But such an unrefined girl as Dorothy is really not the kind
of a girl that ever meets gentlemens mothers.



So Mr. Spoffard says his mother has to have him take care of her quite
a lot. Because Mr. Spoffards mothers brains have never really been so
strong. Because it seems his mother came from such a very fine old
family that even when she was quite a small size child she had to be
sent to a school that was a special school for people of very fine old
familys who had to have things very easy on their brain. So she still
has to have things very easy on her brain, so she has a girl who is
called her companion who goes with her everywhere who is called Miss
Chapman. Because Mr. Spoffard says that there is always something new
going on in the world which they did not get a chance to tell her about
at the school. So now Miss Chapman keeps telling her instead. Because
how would she know what to think about such a new thing as a radio, for
instance, if she did not have Miss Chapman to tell her what it was, for
instance. So Dorothy spoke up and Dorothy said, “What a responsibility
that girl has got on her shoulders. For instance, what if Miss Chapman
told her a radio was something to build a fire in, and she would get
cold some day and stuff it full of papers and light it.” But Mr.
Spoffard told Dorothy that Miss Chapman would never make such a
mistake. Because he said that Miss Chapman came from a very very fine
old family herself and she really had a fine brain. So Dorothy said,
“If she really has got such a fine brain I bet her fine old family once
had an ice man who could not be trusted.” So Mr. Spoffard and I did not
pay any more attention to Dorothy because Dorothy really does not know
how to hold a conversation.



So then I and Mr. Spoffard held a conversation all about morals and Mr.
Spoffard says he really thinks the future of everything is between the
hands of Mr. Blank the district attorney who is the famous district
attorney who is closing up all the places in New York where they sell
all of the liquor. So Mr. Spoffard said that a few months ago, when Mr.
Blank decided he would try to get the job to be the district attorney,
he put 1,000 dollars worth of liquor down his sink. So now Mr. Blank
says that everybody else has got to put it down their sink. So Dorothy
spoke up, and Dorothy said, “If he poured 1,000 dollars worth down his
sink to get himself one million dollars worth of publicity and a good
job—when we pour it down our sink, what do we get?” But Mr. Spoffard is
to brainy a gentleman to answer any such a foolish question. So he gave
Dorothy a look that was full of dignity and he said he would have to go
back to his Mother. So I was really quite angry at Dorothy. So I
followed Mr. Spoffard down the hall of the railway train and I asked
Mr. Spoffard if he thought I was wasting quite a lot of time reforming
a girl like Dorothy. So Mr. Spoffard thinks I am, because he really
thinks a girl like Dorothy will never have any reverance. So I told Mr.
Spoffard I had wasted so much time on Dorothy it would really break my
heart to be a failure. So then I had tears in my eyes. So Mr. Spoffard
is really very very sympathetic because when he saw that I did not have
any handkerchief, he took his own handkerchief and he dried up all of
my tears. So then he said he would help me with Dorothy quite a lot and
get her mind to running on things that are more educational.

So then he said he thought that we ought to get off the train at a
place called Munich because it was very full of art, which they call
“kunst” in Munich, which is very, very educational. So he said he and
Dorothy and I would get off of the train in Munich because he could
send his mother right on to Vienna with Miss Chapman, because every
place always seems to look alike to his mother anyway. So we are all
going to get off the train at Munich and I can send Mr. Eisman a
telegram when nobody is looking. Because I really do not think I will
tell Mr. Spoffard about Mr. Eisman, because, after all, their religions
are different and when two gentlemen have such different religions they
do not seem to have so much to get congeneal about. So I can telegraph
Mr. Eisman that Dorothy and I thought we would get off the train at
Munich to look at all of the art.

So then I went back to Dorothy and I told Dorothy if she did not have
anything to say in the future to not say it. Because even if Mr.
Spoffard is a fine old family and even if he is very Prespyterian, I
and he could really be friendly after all and talk together quite a
lot. I mean Mr. Spoffard likes to talk about himself quite a lot, so I
said to Dorothy it really shows that, after all, he is just like any
other gentleman. But Dorothy said she would demand more proof than
that. So Dorothy says she thinks that maybe I might become quite
friendly with Mr. Spoffard and especially with his mother because she
thinks his mother and I have quite a lot that is common, but she says,
if I ever bump into Miss Chapman, she thinks I will come to a kropper
because Dorothy saw Miss Chapman when she was at luncheon and Dorothy
says Miss Chapman is the kind of a girl that wears a collar and a tie
even when she is not on horseback. And Dorothy said it was the look
that Miss Chapman gave her at luncheon that really gave her the idea
about the ice man. So Dorothy says she thinks Miss Chapman has got 3
thirds of the brains of that trio of Geegans, because Geegans is the
slang word that Dorothy has thought up to use on people who are society
people. Because Dorothy says she thinks any gentleman with Mr.
Spoffards brains had ought to spend his time putting nickels into an
electric piano, but I did not even bother to talk back at such a girl
as Dorothy. So now we must get ready to get off the train when the
train gets to Munich so that we can look at all of the kunst in Munich.



May 19th:

Well yesterday Mr. Spoffard and I and Dorothy got off the train at
Munich to see all of the kunst in Munich, but you only call it Munich
when you are on the train because as soon as you get off of the train
they seem to call it Munchen. So you really would know that Munchen was
full of kunst because in case you would not know it, they have painted
the word “kunst” in large size black letters on everything in Munchen,
and you can not even see a boot black’s stand in Munchen that is not
full of kunst.

So Mr. Spoffard said that we really ought to go to the theater in
Munchen because even the theater in Munchen was full of kunst. So we
looked at all of the bills of all of the theaters, with the aid of
quite an intelectual hotel clerk who seemed to be able to read it and
tell us what it said, because it really meant nothing to us. So it
seems they were playing Kiki in Munchen, so I said, let us go and see
Kiki because we have seen Lenore Ulric in New York and we would really
know what it is all about even if they do not seem to talk the English
landguage. So then we went to the Kunst theater. So it seems that
Munchen is practically full of Germans and the lobby of the Kunst
theater was really full of Germans who stand in the lobby and drink
beer and eat quite a lot of Bermudian onions and garlick sausage and
hard boiled eggs and beer before all of the acts. So I really had to
ask Mr. Spoffard if he thought we had come to the right theatre because
the lobby seemed to smell such a lot. I mean when the smell of beer
gets to be anteek it gets to smell quite a lot. But Mr. Spoffard seemed
to think that the lobby of the Kunst theatre did not smell any worse
than all of the other places in Munich. So then Dorothy spoke up and
Dorothy said “You can say what you want about the Germans being full of
‘kunst,’ but what they are really full of is delicatessen.”

So then we went into the Kunst theater. But the Kunst theater does not
seem to smell so good as the lobby of the Kunst theater. And the Kunst
theater seems to be decorated with quite a lot of what tripe would look
like if it was pasted on the wall and gilded. Only you could not really
see the gilding because it was covered with quite a lot of dust. So
Dorothy looked around and Dorothy said, if this is “kunst,” the art
center of the world is Union Hill New Jersey.

So then they started in to playing Kiki but it seems that it was not
the same kind of a Kiki that we have in America, because it seemed to
be all about a family of large size German people who seemed to keep
getting in each others ways. I mean when a stage is completely full of
2 or 3 German people who are quite large size, they really cannot help
it if they seem to get in each others ways. So then Dorothy got to
talking with a young gentleman who seemed to be a German gentleman who
sat back of her, who she thought was applauding. But what he was really
doing was he was cracking a hard boiled egg on the back of her chair.
So he talked English with quite an accent that seemed to be quite a
German accent. So Dorothy asked him if Kiki had come out on the stage
yet. So he said no, but she was really a beautiful german actress who
came clear from Berlin and he said we should really wait until she came
out, even if we did not seem to understand it. So finally she came out.
I mean we knew it was her because Dorothy’s German gentleman friend
nudged Dorothy with a sausage. So we looked at her, and we looked at
her and Dorothy said, “If Schuman Heinke still has a grandmother, we
have dug her up in Munchen.” So we did not bother to see any more of
Kiki because Dorothy said she would really have to know more about the
foundations of that building before she would risk our lives to see
Kiki do that famous scene where she faints in the last act. Because
Dorothy said, if the foundations of that building were as anteek as the
smell, there was going to be a catasterophy when Kiki hit the floor. So
even Mr. Spoffard was quite discouradged, but he was really glad
because he said he was 100 per cent. of an American and it served the
Germans right for starting such a war against all we Americans.



May 20th:

Well today Mr. Spoffard is going to take me all around to all of the
museums in Munchen, which are full of kunst that I really ought to look
at, but Dorothy said she had been punished for all of her sins last
night, so now she is going to begin life all over again by going out
with her German gentleman friend, who is going to take her to a house
called the Half Brow house which is the worlds largest size of a Beer
Hall. So Dorothy said I could be a high brow and get full of kunst, but
she is satisfide to be a Half brow and get full of beer. But Dorothy
will really never be full of anything else but unrefinement.



May 21st:

Well Mr. Spoffard and I and Dorothy are on the train again and we are
all going to Vienna. I mean Mr. Spoffard and I spent one whole day
going through all of the museums in Munchen, but I am really not even
going to think about it. Because when something terrible happens to me,
I always try to be a Christian science and I simply do not even think
about it, but I deny that it ever happened even if my feet do seem to
hurt quite a lot. So even Dorothy had quite a hard day in Munchen
because her German gentleman friend, who is called Rudolf, came for her
at 11 oclock to take her to breakfast. But Dorothy told him that she
had had her breakfast. But her gentleman friend said that he had had
his first breakfast to, but it was time for his second. So he took
Dorothy to the Half Brow house where everybody eats white sausages and
pretzels and beer at 11 oclock. So after they had their white sausages
and beer he wanted to take her for a ride but they could only go a few
blocks because by then it was time for luncheon. So they ate quite a
lot of luncheon and then he bought her a large size box of chocolates
that were full of liqueurs, and took her to the matinee. So after the
first act Rudolf got hungry and they had to go and stand in the lobby
and have some sandwitches and beer. But Dorothy did not enjoy the show
very much and so after the second act Rudolf said they would leave
because it was time for tea anyway. So after quite a heavy tea, Rudolph
asked her to dinner and Dorothy was to overcome to say No. So after
dinner they went to a beer garden for beer and pretzels. But finally
Dorothy began to come to, and she asked him to take her back to the
hotel. So Rudolf said he would, but they had better have a bite to eat
first. So today Dorothy really feels just as discouradged as I seem to
feel, only Dorothy is not a Christian science and all she can do is
suffer.

But in spite of all of my Christian science, I am really beginning to
feel quite discouradged about Vienna. I mean Mr. Eisman is in Vienna,
and I do not see how I can spend quite a lot of time with Mr. Eisman
and quite a lot of time with Mr. Spoffard and keep them from meeting
one another. Because Mr. Spoffard might not seem to understand why Mr.
Eisman seems to spend quite a lot of money to get me educated. And
Dorothy keeps trying to depress me about Miss Chapman because she says
she thinks that when Miss Chapman sees I and Mr. Spoffard together she
thinks that Miss Chapman will cable for the familys favorite lunacy
expert. So I have got to be as full of Christian science as I can and
always hope for the best.



May 25th:

So far everything has really worked out for the best. Because Mr.
Eisman is very very busy all day with the button profession, and he
tells me to run around with Dorothy all day. So I and Mr. Spoffard run
around all day. So then I tell Mr. Spoffard that I really do not care
to go to all of the places that you go to at night, but I will go to
bed and get ready for tomorrow instead. So then Dorothy and I go to
dinner with Mr. Eisman and then we go to a show, and we stay up quite
late at a cabaret called the Chapeau Rouge and I am able to keep it all
up with the aid of champagne. So if we keep our eye out for Mr.
Spoffard and do not all bump into one another when he is out looking at
things that we Americans really should not look at, it will all work
out for the best. I mean I have even stopped Mr. Spoffard looking at
museums because I tell him that I like nature better, and when you look
at nature you look at it in a horse and buggy in the park and it is
much easier on the feet. So now he is beginning to talk about how he
would like me to meet his mother, so everything really seems for the
best after all.

But I have quite a hard time with Mr. Eisman at night. I mean at night
Mr. Eisman is in quite a state, because every time he makes an
engagement about the button factory, it is time for all the gentlemen
in Vienna to go to the coffee house and sit. Or else every time he
makes an engagement about the button factory, some Viennese gentleman
gets the idea to have a picknick and they all put on short pants and
bare knees and they all put a feather in their hat, and they all walk
to the Tyrol. So it really discouradges Mr. Eisman quite a lot. But if
anyone ought to get discouradged I think that I ought to get
discouradged because after all when a girl has had no sleep for a week
a girl can not help it if she seems to get discouradged.



May 27th:

Well finaly I broke down and Mr. Spoffard said that he thought a little
girl like I, who was trying to reform the whole world was trying to do
to much, especially beginning on a girl like Dorothy. So he said there
was a famous doctor in Vienna called Dr. Froyd who could stop all of my
worrying because he does not give a girl medicine but he talks you out
of it by psychoanalysis. So yesterday he took me to Dr. Froyd. So Dr.
Froyd and I had quite a long talk in the english landguage. So it seems
that everybody seems to have a thing called inhibitions, which is when
you want to do a thing and you do not do it. So then you dream about it
instead. So Dr. Froyd asked me, what I seemed to dream about. So I told
him that I never really dream about anything. I mean I use my brains so
much in the day time that at night they do not seem to do anything else
but rest. So Dr. Froyd was very very surprized at a girl who did not
dream about anything. So then he asked me all about my life. I mean he
is very very sympathetic, and he seems to know how to draw a girl out
quite a lot. I mean I told him things that I really would not even put
in my diary. So then he seemed very very intreeged at a girl who always
seemed to do everything she wanted to do. So he asked me if I really
never wanted to do a thing that I did not do. For instance did I ever
want to do a thing that was really vialent, for instance, did I ever
want to shoot someone for instance. So then I said I had, but the
bullet only went in Mr. Jennings lung and came right out again. So then
Dr. Froyd looked at me and looked at me and he said he did not really
think it was possible. So then he called in his assistance and he
pointed at me and talked to his assistance quite a lot in the Viennese
landguage. So then his assistance looked at me and looked at me and it
really seems as if I was quite a famous case. So then Dr. Froyd said
that all I needed was to cultivate a few inhibitions and get some
sleep.



May 29th:

Things are really getting to be quite a strain. Because yesterday Mr.
Spoffard and Mr. Eisman were both in the lobby of the Bristol hotel and
I had to pretend not to see both of them. I mean it is quite an easy
thing to pretend not to see one gentleman, but it is a quite hard thing
to pretend not to see two gentlemen. So something has really got to
happen soon, or I will have to admit that things seem to be happening
that are not for the best.

So this afternoon Dorothy and I had an engagement to meet Count Salm
for tea at four o’clock, only you do not call it tea at Vienna but you
seem to call it “yowzer” and you do not drink tea at Vienna but you
drink coffee instead. I mean it is quite unusual to see all of the
gentlemen at Vienna stop work, to go to yowzer about one hour after
they have all finished their luncheon, but time really does not seem to
mean so much to Viennese gentlemen except time to get to the coffee
house, which they all seem to know by instincts, or else they really do
not seem to mind if they make a mistake and get there to early. Because
Mr. Eisman says that when it is time to attend to the button
profession, they really seem to lose all of their interest until Mr.
Eisman is getting so nervous he could scream.

So we went to Deimels and met Count Salm. But while we were having
yowzer with Count Salm, we saw Mr. Spoffard’s mother come in with her
companion Miss Chapman, and Miss Chapman seemed to look at me quite a
lot and talk to Mr. Spoffards mother about me quite a lot. So I became
quite nervous, because I really wished that we were not with Count
Salm. I mean it has been quite a hard thing to make Mr. Spoffard think
that I am trying to reform Dorothy, but if I had to try to make him
think that I was trying to reform Count Salm, he might begin to think
that there is a limit to almost everything. So Mr. Spoffards mother
seems to be deaf, because she seems to use an ear trumpet and I really
could not help over hearing quite a lot of words that Miss Chapman was
using on me, even if it is not such good etiquet to overhear people. So
Miss Chapman seemed to be telling Mr. Spoffards mother that I was a
“creature,” and she seemed to be telling her that I was the real reason
why her son seemed to be so full of nothing but neglect lately. So then
Mr. Spoffards mother looked at me and looked at me, even if it was not
such good etiquet to look at a person. And Miss Chapman kept right on
talking to Mr. Spoffards mother and I heard her mention Willie Gwynn
and I think that Miss Chapman has been making some inquiries about me
and I really think that she has heard about the time when all of the
family of Willie Gwynn had quite a long talk with me and persuaded me
not to marry Willie Gwynn for $10,000. So I really wish Mr. Spoffard
would introduce me to his mother before she gets to be full of quite a
lot of prejudice. Because one thing seems to be piling up on top of
another thing, until I am almost on the verge of getting nervous and I
have not had any time yet to do what Dr. Froyd said a girl ought to do.

So tonight I am going to tell Mr. Eisman that I have got to go to bed
early, so then I can take quite a long ride with Mr. Spoffard and look
at nature, and he may say something definite, because nothing makes
gentlemen get so definite as looking at nature when it is moonlight.



May 30th:

Well last night Mr. Spoffard and I took quite a long ride in the park,
but they do not call it a park in the Viennese landguage but they call
it the Prater. So a prater is really devine because it is just like
Coney Island but at the same time it is in the woods and it is
practically full of trees and it has quite a long road for people to
take rides on in a horse and buggy. So I found out that Miss Chapman
had been talking against me quite a lot. So it seems that she has been
making inquiries about me, and I was really surprised to hear all of
the things that Miss Chapman seemed to find out about me except that
she did not find out about Mr. Eisman educating me. So then I had to
tell Mr. Spoffard that I was not always so reformed as I am now,
because the world was full of gentlemen who were nothing but wolfs in
sheeps clothes, that did nothing but take advantadge of all we girls.
So I really cried quite a lot. So then I told him how I was just a
little girl from Little Rock when I first left Little Rock and by that
time even Mr. Spoffard had tears in his eyes. So I told him how I came
from a very very good family because papa was very intelectual, and he
was a very very prominent Elk, and everybody always said that he was a
very intelectual Elk. So I told Mr. Spoffard that when I left Little
Rock I thought that all of the gentlemen did not want to do anything
but protect we girls and by the time I found out that they did not want
to protect us so much, it was to late. So then he cried quite a lot. So
then I told him how I finaly got reformed by reading all about him in
the newspapers and when I saw him in the oriental express it really
seemed to be nothing but the result of fate. So I told Mr. Spoffard
that I thought a girl was really more reformed if she knew what it was
to be unreformed than if she was born reformed and never really knew
that was the matter with her. So then Mr. Spoffard reached over and he
kissed me on the forehead in a way that was full of reverance and he
said I seemed to remind him quite a lot of a girl who got quite a
write-up in the bible who was called Magdellen. So then he said that he
used to be a member of the choir himself, so who was he to cast the
first rock at a girl like I.

So we rode around in the Prater until it was quite late and it really
was devine because it was moonlight and we talked quite a lot about
morals, and all the bands in the prater were all playing in the
distants “Mama love Papa”. Because “Mama love Papa” has just reached
Vienna and they all seem to be crazy about “Mama love Papa” even if it
is not so new in America. So then he took me home to the hotel.

So everything always works out for the best, because this morning Mr.
Spoffard called up and told me he wanted me to meet his mother. So I
told him I would like to have luncheon alone with his mother because we
could have quite a little tatatate if there was only two of us. So I
told him to bring his mother to our room for luncheon because I thought
that Miss Chapman could not walk into our room and spoil everything.

So he brought his mother down to our sitting room and I put on quite a
simple little organdy gown that I had ripped all of the trimming off
of, and I had a pair of black lace mitts that Dorothy used to wear in
the Follies and I had a pair of shoes that did not have any heels on
them. So when he introduced us to each other I dropped her a courtesy
because I always think it is quite quaint when a girl drops quite a lot
of courtesys. So then he left us alone and we had quite a little talk
and I told her that I did not seem to like all of the flappers that we
seem to have nowadays, because I was brought up to be more old
fashioned. So then Mr. Spoffards mother told me that Miss Chapman said
that she had heard that I was not so old fashioned. But I told her that
I was so old fashioned that I was always full of respect for all of my
elders and I would not dare to tell them everything they ought to do,
like Miss Chapman seems to tell her everything she ought to do, for
instants.

So then I ordered luncheon and I thought some champagne would make her
feel quite good for luncheon so I asked her if she liked champagne. So
she really likes champagne very very much but Miss Chapman thinks it is
not so nice for a person to drink liquor. But I told her that I was a
Christian science, and all of we Christian science seem to believe that
there can not really be any harm in anything, so how can there be any
harm in a small size bottle of champagne? So she never seemed to look
at it in that kind of a light before, because she said that Miss
Chapman believed in Christian science also, but what Miss Chapman
believed about things that were good for you to drink seemed to apply
more towards water. So then we had luncheon and she began to feel very
very good. So I thought that we had better have another bottle of
champagne because I told her that I was such an ardent Christian
science that I did not even believe there could be any harm in two
bottles of champagne. So we had another bottle of champagne and she
became very intreeged about Christian science because she said that she
really thought it was a better religion than Prespyterians. So she said
Miss Chapman used to try to get her to use it on things, but Miss
Chapman never seemed to have such a large size grasp of the Christian
science religion as I seem to have.

So then I told her that I thought Miss Chapman was jealous of her good
looks. So then she said that that was true, because Miss Chapman would
always make her wear hats that were made out of black horses hair
because horses hair does not weigh so much on a persons brain. So I
told her I was going to give her one of my hats that has got quite
large size roses on it. So then I got it out, but we could not get it
on her head because hats are quite small on account of hair being
bobbed. So I thought I would get the sissors and bob her head, but then
I thought I had done enough to her for one day.

So Henry’s mother said that I was really the most sunshine that she
ever had in all her life and when Henry came back to take his Mother up
to her room, she did not want to go. But after he got her away he
called me up on the telephone and he was qiute excited and he said he
wanted to ask me something that was very very important. So I said I
would see him tonight.

But now I have got to see Mr. Eisman because I have an idea about doing
something that is really very very important that has got to be done at
once.



May 31st:

Well I and Dorothy and Mr. Eisman are on a train going to a place
called Buda Pest. So I did not see Henry again before I left, but I
left him a letter. Because I thought it would be a quite good thing if
what he wanted to ask me he would have to write down, instead of asking
me, and he could not write it to me if I was in the same city that he
is in. So I told him in my letter that I had to leave in five minute’s
time because I found out that Dorothy was just on the verge of getting
very unreformed, and if I did not get her away, all I had done for her
would really go for nothing. So I told him to write down what he had to
say to me, and mail it to me at the Ritz hotel in Buda Pest. Because I
always seem to believe in the old addage, Say it in writing.

So it was really very easy to get Mr. Eisman to leave Vienna, because
yesterday he went out to see the button factory but it seems that all
of the people at the button factory were not at work but they were
giving a birthday party to some saint. So it seems that every time some
saint has a birthday they all stop work so they can give it a birthday
party. So Mr. Eisman looked at their calendar, and found out that some
saint or other was born practically every week in the year. So he has
decided that America is good enough for him.

So Henry will not be able to follow me to Buda Pest because his mother
is having treatments by Dr. Froyd and she seems to be a much more
difficult case than I seem to be. I mean it is quite hard for Dr.
Froyd, because she cannot seem to remember which is a dream and which
really happened to her. So she tells him everything, and he has to use
his judgement. I mean when she tells him that a very very handsome
young gentleman tried to flirt with her on Fifth Avenue, he uses his
judgement.

So we will soon be at a Ritz hotel again and I must say it will be
delightful to find a Ritz hotel right in the central of Europe.



June 1st:

Well yesterday Henrys letter came and it says in black and white that
he and his mother have never met such a girl as I and he wants me to
marry him. So I took Henrys letter to the photographers and I had quite
a lot of photographs taken of it because a girl might lose Henrys
letter and she would not have anything left to remember him by. But
Dorothy says to hang on to Henry’s letter, because she really does not
think the photographs do it justice.

So this afternoon I got a telegram from Henry and the telegram says
that Henry’s father is very, very ill in New York and they have got to
leave for New York immediately and his heart is broken not to see me
again and to send him my answer by telegraph so that his mind will be
rested while he is going back to New York. So I sent him a telegram and
I accepted his proposal. So tonight I got another telegram and Henry
says that he and his mother are very very happy and Henrys mother can
hardly bear Miss Chapman any more and Henry says he hopes I will decide
to come right back to New York and keep his mother quite a lot of
company, because he thinks I can reform Dorothy more in New York
anyway, where there is prohibition and nobody can get anything to
drink.

So now I have got to make up my mind whether I really want to marry
Henry after all. Because I know to much to get married to any gentleman
like Henry without thinking it all over. Because Henry is the kind of a
gentleman who gets on a girls nerves quite a lot and when a gentleman
has nothing else to do but get on a girls nerves, there really seems to
be a limit to almost everything. Because when a gentleman has a
business, he has an office and he has to be there, but when a
gentlemans business is only looking into other peoples business, a
gentleman is always on the verge of coming in and out of the house. And
a girl could not really say that her time was her own. And when Henry
was not in and out of the house, his mother would always be in and out
of the house because she seems to think that I am so full of nothing
but sunshine. So it is quite a problem and I seem to be in quite a
quarandary, because it might really be better if Henry should happen to
decide that he should not get married, and he should change his mind,
and desert a girl, and then it would only be right if a girl should sue
him for a breach of promise.

But I really think, whatever happens, that Dorothy and I had better get
back to New York. So I will see if Mr. Eisman will send us back. I mean
I really do not think that Mr. Eisman will mind us going back because
if he does, I will start shopping again and that always seems to bring
him to terms. But all the time I am going back to New York, I will have
to try to make up my mind one way or another. Because we girls really
can not help it, if we have ideals, and sometimes my mind seems to get
to running on things that are romantic, and I seem to think that maybe
there is some place in the world where there is a gentleman who knows
how to look and act like Count Salm and who has got money besides. And
when a girls mind gets to thinking about such a romantic thing, a girls
mind really does not seem to know whether to marry Henry or not.



CHAPTER SIX

BRAINS ARE REALLY EVERYTHING


June 14th:

Well, Dorothy and I arrived at New York yesterday because Mr. Eisman
finally decided to send us home because he said that all of his button
profession would not stand the strain of educating me much more in
Europe. So we separated from Mr. Eisman in Buda Pest because Mr. Eisman
had to go to Berlin to look up all of his starving relatives in Berlin,
who have done nothing but starve since the War, so he wrote me just
before we sailed and he said that he had dug up all his starving
relatives and he had looked them all over, and decided not to bring
them to America because there was not one of his starving relatives who
could travel on a railroad ticket without paying excess fare for
overweight.

So Dorothy and I took the boat and all the way over on the boat I had
to make up my mind whether I really wanted to marry the famous Henry H.
Spoffard, or not, because he was waiting for me to arrive at New York
and he was so impatient that he could hardly wait for me to arrive at
New York. But I have not wasted all of my time on Henry, even if I do
not marry him, because I have some letters from Henry which would come
in very, very handy if I did not marry Henry. So Dorothy seems to agree
with me quite a lot, because Dorothy says the only thing she could
stand being to Henry, would be to be his widow at the age of 18.

So coming over on the boat I decided not to bother to meet any
gentleman, because what good does it do to meet gentlemen when there is
nothing to do on a boat but go shopping at a little shop where they do
not have any thing that costs more than five dollars. And besides if I
did meet any gentleman on the boat, he would want to see me off the
boat, and then we would bump into Henry. But then I heard that there
was a gentleman on the boat who was quite a dealer in unset diamonds
from a town called Amsterdam. So I met the gentleman, and we went
around together quite a lot, but we had quite a quarrel the night
before we landed, so I did not even bother to look at him when I came
down the gangplank, and I put the unset diamonds in my handbag so I did
not have to declare them at the customs.

So Henry was waiting for me at the customs, because he had come up from
Pennsylvania to meet me, because their country estate is at
Pennsylvania, and Henry’s father is very, very ill at Pennsylvania, so
Henry has to stay there practically all of the time. So all of the
reporters were at the customs and they all heard about how Henry and I
were engaged to one another and they wanted to know what I was before I
became engaged to Henry, so I told them that I was nothing but a
society girl from Little Rock, Arkansas. So then I became quite angry
with Dorothy because one of the reporters asked Dorothy when I made my
debut in society at Little Rock and Dorothy said I made my debut at the
Elks annual street fair and carnival at the age of 15, I mean Dorothy
never overlooks any chance to be unrefined, even when she is talking to
literary gentlemen like reporters.

So Henry brought me to the apartment in his Rolls Royce, and while we
were coming to the apartment he said he wanted to give me my engagement
ring and I really became all thrills. So he said that he had gone to
Cartiers and he had looked over all the engagement rings in Cartiers
and after he had looked them all over he had decided that they were not
half good enough for me. So then he took a box out of his pocket and I
really became intreeged. So then Henry said that when he looked at all
of those large size diamonds he really felt that they did not have any
sentiment, so he was going to give me his class ring from Amherst
College insted. So then I looked at him and looked at him, but I am to
full of self controle to say anything at this stage of the game, so I
said it was really very sweet of him to be so full of nothing but
sentiment.

So then Henry said that he would have to go back to Pennsylvania to
talk to his father about us getting married, because his father has
really got his heart set on us not getting married. So I told Henry
that perhaps if I would meet his father, I would win him over, because
I always seem to win gentlemen over. But Henry says that that is just
the trouble, because some girl is always winning his father over, and
they hardly dare to let him go out of their sight, and they hardly dare
let him go to church alone. Because the last time he went to church
alone some girl won him over on the street corner and he arrived back
home with all of his pocket money gone, and they could not believe him
when he said that he had put it in the plate, because he has not put
more than a dime in the plate for the last fifty years.

So it seems that the real reason why his father does not want Henry to
marry me, is because his father says that Henry always has all of the
fun, and every time Henry’s father wants to have some fun of his own,
Henry always stops him and Henry will not even let him be sick at a
hospital where he could have some fun of his own, but he keeps him at
home where he has to have a nurse Henry picked out for him who is a
male nurse. So all of his objections seem to be nothing but the spirit
of resiprosity. But Henry says that all his objections cannot last much
longer because he is nearly 90 years of age after all, and Nature must
take its course sooner or later.

So Dorothy says what a fool I am to waste my time on Henry, when I
might manage to meet Henry’s father and the whole thing would be over
in a few months and I would practically own the state of Pennsylvania.
But I do not think I ought to take Dorothy’s advise because Henry’s
father is watched like a hawk and Henry himself is his Power of
Attorney, so no good could really come of it after all. And, after all,
why should I listen to the advise of a girl like Dorothy who travelled
all over Europe and all she came home with was a bangle!

So Henry spent the evening at the apartment and then he had to go back
to Pennsylvania to be there Thursday morning, because every Thursday
morning he belongs to a society who do nothing but senshure all of the
photoplays. So they cut out all of the pieces out of all the photoplays
that show things that are riskay, that people ought not to look at. So
then they put all of the riskay pieces together and they run them over
and over again. So it would really be quite a hard thing to drag Henry
away from one of his Thursday mornings and he can hardly wait from one
Thursday morning to another. Because he really does not seem to enjoy
anything so much as senshuring photoplays and after a photoplay has
once been senshured he seems to lose all of his interest in it.

So after Henry left I held quite a conversation with Lulu, who is my
maid who looked out for my apartment while I was away. So Lulu really
thinks I ought to marry Mr. Spoffard after all, because Lulu says that
she kept studying Mr. Spoffard all of the time she was unpacking my
trunks, and Lulu says she is sure that any time I feel as if I had to
get away from Mr. Spoffard I could just set him down on the floor, and
give him a packet of riskay french postcards to senshure and stay away
as long as I like.

So Henry is going to arrange for me to come down to Pennsylvania for a
week-end and meet all of his family. But if all of Henry’s family are
as full of reforms as Henry seems to be, it will be quite an ordeal
even for a girl like I.



June 15th:

Yesterday morning was quite an ordeal for a refined girl because all of
the newspapers all printed the story of how Henry and I are engaged to
one another, but they all seemed to leave out the part about me being a
society girl except one newspaper, and that was the newspaper that
quoted what Dorothy said about me being a debutant at the Elk’s
Carnival. So I called up Dorothy at the Ritz and I told Dorothy that a
girl like she ought to keep her mouth closed in the presents of
reporters.

So it seems that quite a lot of reporters kept calling Dorothy up but
Dorothy said she really did not say anything to any of them except one
reporter asked her what I used for money and she told him buttons. But
Dorothy really should not have said such a thing, because quite a few
people seem to know that Mr. Eisman is educating me and that he is
known all over Chicago as Gus Eisman the Button King, so one thing
might suggest another until people’s minds might begin to think
something.

But Dorothy said that she did not say anything more about me being a
debutant at Little Rock, because after all Dorothy knows that I really
did not make any debut in Little Rock, because just when it was time to
make my debut, my gentleman friend Mr. Jennings became shot, and after
the trial was over and all of the Jury had let me off, I was really
much to fatigued to make any debut.

So then Dorothy said, why don’t we throw a party now and you can become
a debutant now and put them all in their place, because it seems that
Dorothy is dying for a party. So that is really the first sensible
suggestion that Dorothy has made yet, because I think that every girl
who is engaged to a gentleman who has a fine old family like Henry, had
really ought to be a debutant. So I told her to come right over and we
would plan my debut but we would keep it very, very quiet and give it
tomorrow night, because if Henry heard I was making my debut he would
come up from Pennsylvania and he would practically spoil the party,
because all Henry has to do to spoil a party is to arrive at it.

So Dorothy came over and we planned my debut. So first we decided to
have some engraved invitations engraved, but it always takes quite a
little time to have invitations engraved, and it would really be
foolish because all of the gentlemen we were going to invite to my
debut were all members of the Racquet Club, so I could just write out a
notice that I was having a debut and give it to Willie Gwynn and have
Willie Gwynn post it on the Racquet Club board.

So Willie Gwynn posted it on the club board and then he called me up
and he told me that he had never seen so much enthusiasm since the
Dempsey-Firpo fight, and he said that the whole Racquet Club would be
there in a body. So then we had to plan about what girls we would ask
to my debut. Because I have not seemed to meet so many society women
yet because of course a girl does not meet society women until her
debut is all over, and then all the society women all come and call on
a debutant. But I know practically all of the society men, because
practically all of the society men belong to the Racquet club, so after
I have the Racquet Club at my debut, all I have to do to take my real
place in society is to meet their mothers and sisters, because I know
practically all of their sweethearts now.

But I always seem to think that it is delightful to have quite a lot of
girls at a party, if a girl has quite a lot of gentlemen at a party,
and it is quite delightful to have all the girls from the Follies, but
I really could not invite them because, after all, they are not in my
set. So then I thought it all over and I thought that even if it was
not etiquette to invite them to a party, it really would be etiquette
to hire them to come to a party and be entertainers, and after they
were entertainers they could mix in to the party and it really would
not be a social error.

So then the telephone rang and Dorothy answered it and it seems that it
was Joe Sanguinetti, who is almost the official bootlegger for the
whole Racquet Club, and Joe said he had heard about my debut and if he
could come to my debut and bring his club which is the Silver Spray
Social Club of Brooklyn, he would supply all of the liquor and he would
guarantee to practically run the rum fleet up to the front door.

So Dorothy told him he could come, and she hung up the telephone before
she told me his proposition, and I became quite angry with Dorothy
because, after all, the Silver Spray Social Club is not even mentioned
in the Social Register and it has no place at a girl’s debut. But
Dorothy said by the time the party got into swing, anyone would have to
be a genius if he could tell whether he belonged to the Racquet Club,
the Silver Spray Social Club, or the Knights of Pythias. But I really
was almost sorry that I asked Dorothy to help plan my debut, except
that Dorothy is very good to have at a party if the police come in,
because Dorothy always knows how to manage the police, and I never knew
a policeman yet who did not finish up by being madly in love with
Dorothy. So then Dorothy called up all of the reporters on all of the
newspapers and invited them all to my debut, so they could see it with
their own eyes.

So Dorothy says that she is going to see to it that my debut lands on
the front page of all of the newspapers, if we have to commit a murder
to do it.



June 19th:

Well, it has been three days since my debut party started but I finally
got tired and left the party last night and went to bed because I
always seem to lose all of my interest in a party after a few days, but
Dorothy never loses her interest in a party and when I woke up this
morning Dorothy was just saying goodbye to some of the guests. I mean
Dorothy seems to have quite a lot of vitality, because the last guests
of the party were guests we picked up when the party went to take a
swim at Long Beach the day before yesterday, and they were practically
fresh, but Dorothy had gone clear through the party from beginning to
end without even stopping to go to a Turkish bath as most of the
gentlemen had to do. So my debut has really been very novel, because
quite a lot of the guests who finished up at my debut were not the same
guests that started out at it, and it is really quite novel for a girl
to have so many different kinds of gentlemen at her debut. So it has
really been a very great success because all of the newspapers have
quite a lot of write-ups about my debut and I really felt quite proud
when I saw the front page of the Daily Views and it said in large size
headlines, “LORELEI’S DEBUT A WOW!” And Zits’ Weekly came right out and
said that if this party marks my entrance into society, they only hope
that they can live to see what I will spring once I have overcome my
debutant reserve and taken my place in the world.

So I really had to apologise to Dorothy about asking Joe Sanguinetti to
my debut because it was wonderful the way he got all of the liquor to
the party and he more than kept his word. I mean he had his bootleggers
run up from the wharf in taxis, right to the apartment, and the only
trouble he had was, that once the bootleggers delivered the liquor, he
could not get them to leave the party. So finally there was quite a
little quarrel because Willie Gwynn claimed that Joe’s bootleggers were
snubbing the members of his club because they would not let the boys
from the Racquet club sing in their quartet. But Joe’s bootleggers said
that the Racquet club boys wanted to sing songs that were unrefined,
while they wanted to sing songs about Mother. So then everybody started
to take sides, but the girls from the Follies were all with Joe’s
bootleggers from the start because practically all we girls were
listening to them with tears steaming from our eyes. So that made the
Racquet club jealous and one thing led to another until somebody rang
for an ambulants and then the police came in.

So Dorothy, as usual, won over all of the police. So it seems that the
police all have orders from Judge Schultzmeyer, who is the famous judge
who tries all of the prohibition cases, that any time they break into a
party that looks like it was going to be a good party, to call him up
no matter what time of the day or night it is, because Judge
Schultzmeyer dearly loves a party. So the Police called up Judge
Schultzmeyer and he was down in less than no time. So during the party
both Joe Sanguinetti and Judge Schultzmeyer fell madly in love with
Dorothy. So Joe and the Judge had quite a little quarrel and the Judge
told Joe that if his stuff was fit to drink he would set the Law after
him and confiscate it, but his stuff was not worth the while of any
gentleman to confiscate who had any respect for his stomach, and he
would not lower himself to confiscate it. So along about nine o’clock
in the morning Judge Schultzmeyer had to leave the party and go to
court to try all of the criminals who break all of the laws, so he had
to leave Dorothy and Joe together and he was very very angry. And I
really felt quite sorry for any person who went up before Judge
Schultzmeyer that morning, because he gave everybody 90 days and was
back at the party by twelve o’clock. So then he stuck to the party
until we were all going down to Long Beach to take a swim day before
yesterday when he seemed to become unconscious, so we dropped him off
at a sanitorium in Garden City.

So my debut party was really the greatest success of the social season,
because the second night of my debut party was the night when Willie
Gwynn’s sister was having a dance at the Gwynn estate on Long Island,
and Willie Gwynn said that all of the eligible gentlemen in New York
were conspicuous by their absents at his sister’s party, because they
were all at my party. So it seems as if I am really going to be quite a
famous hostess if I can just bring my mind to the point of being Mrs.
Henry Spoffard Jr.

Well Henry called up this morning and Henry said he had finally got his
father’s mind so that he thought it was safe for me to meet him and he
was coming up to get me this afternoon so that I can meet his family
and see his famous old historical home at Pennsylvania. So then he
asked about my debut party which some of the Philadelphia papers seemed
to mention. But I told him that my debut was really not so much
planned, as it was spontaneous, and I did not have the heart to call
him up at a moments notice and take him away from his father at such a
time for reasons which were nothing but social.

So now I am getting ready to visit Henry’s family and I feel as if my
whole future depends on it. Because if I can not stand Henry’s family
any more than I can stand Henry the whole thing will probly come to an
end in the law court.



June 21st:

Well, I am now spending the weekend with Henry’s family at his old
family mansion outside of Philadelphia, and I am beginning to think,
after all, that there is something else in the world besides family.
And I am beginning to think that family life is only fit for those who
can stand it. For instants, they always seem to get up very early in
Henry’s family. I mean it really is not so bad to get up early when
there is something to get up early about, but when a girl gets up early
and there is nothing to get up early about, it really begins to seem as
if there was no sense to it.

So yesterday we all got up early and that was when I met all of Henry’s
family, because Henry and I motored down to Pennsylvania and everybody
was in bed when we arrived because it was after nine o’clock. So in the
morning Henry’s mother came to my room to get me up in time for
breakfast because Henry’s mother is very very fond of me, and she
always wants to copy all of my gowns and she always loves to look
through all of my things to see what I have got. So she found a box of
liqueur candies that are full of liqueurs and she was really very
delighted. So I finally got dressed and she threw the empty box away
and I helped her down stairs to the Dining room.

So Henry was waiting in the dining room with his sister and that was
when I met his sister. So it seems that Henry’s sister has never been
the same since the war, because she never had on a man’s collar and a
necktie until she drove an ambulants in the war, and now they cannot
get her to take them off. Because ever since the armistice Henry’s
sister seems to have the idea that regular womens clothes are
effiminate. So Henry’s sister seems to think of nothing but either
horses or automobiles and when she is not in a garage the only other
place she is happy in is a stable. I mean she really pays very little
attention to all of her family and she seems to pay less attention to
Henry than anybody else because she seems to have the idea that Henry’s
brains are not so viril. So then we all waited for Henry’s father to
come in so that he could read the Bible out loud before breakfast.

So then something happened that really was a miracle. Because it seems
that Henry’s father has practically lived in a wheel chair for months
and months and his male nurse has to wheel him everywhere. So his male
nurse wheeled him into the dining room in his wheel chair and then
Henry said “Father, this is going to be your little daughter in law,”
and Henry’s father took one good look at me and got right out of his
wheel chair and walked! So then everybody was very very surprised, but
Henry was not so surprised because Henry knows his father like a book.
So then they all tried to calm his father down, and his father tried to
read out of the Bible but he could hardly keep his mind on the Bible
and he could hardly eat a bite because when a gentleman is as feeble as
Henry’s father is, he cannot keep one eye on a girl and the other eye
on his cereal and cream without coming to grief. So Henry finally
became quite discouradged and he told his father he would have to get
back to his room or he would have a relapse. So then the male nurse
wheeled him back to his room and it really was pathetic because he
cried like a baby. So I got to thinking over what Dorothy advised me
about Henry’s father and I really got to thinking that if Henry’s
father could only get away from everybody and have some time of his
own, Dorothy’s advise might not be so bad after all.

So after breakfast we all got ready to go to church, but Henry’s sister
does not go to church because Henry’s sister always likes to spend
every Sunday in the garage taking their Ford farm truck apart and
putting it back together again, and Henry says that what the war did to
a girl like his sister is really worse than the war itself.

So then Henry and his mother and I all went to church. So we came home
from church and we had luncheon and it seems that luncheon is
practically the same as breakfast except that Henry’s father could not
come down to luncheon because after he met me he contracted such a
vialent fever that they had to send for the Doctor.

So in the afternoon Henry went to prayer meeting and I was left alone
with Henry’s mother so that we could rest up so that we could go to
church again after supper. So Henry’s mother thinks I am nothing but
sunshine and she will hardly let me get out of her sight, because she
hates to be by herself because, when she is by herself, her brains
hardly seem to work at all. So she loves to try on all of my hats and
she loves to tell me how all the boys in the choir can hardly keep
their eyes off her. So of course a girl has to agree with her, and it
is quite difficult to agree with a person when you have to do it
through an ear trumpet because sooner or later your voice has to give
out.

So then supper turned out to be practically the same thing as luncheon
only by supper time all of the novelty seemed to wear off. So then I
told Henry that I had to much of a headache to go to church again, so
Henry and his mother went to church and I went to my room and I sat
down and thought and I decided that life was really to short to spend
it in being proud of your family, even if they did have a great deal of
money. So the best thing for me to do is to think up some scheme to
make Henry decide not to marry me and take what I can get out of it and
be satisfied.



June 22nd:

Well, yesterday I made Henry put me on the train at Philadelphia and I
made him stay at Philadelphia so he could be near his father if his
father seemed to take any more relapses. So I sat in my drawing room on
the train and I decided that the time had come to get rid of Henry at
any cost. So I decided that the thing that discouradges gentlemen more
than anything else is shopping. Because even Mr. Eisman, who was
practically born for we girls to shop on, and who knows just what to
expect, often gets quite discouradged over all of my shopping. So I
decided I would get to New York and I would go to Cartiers and run up
quite a large size bill on Henry’s credit, because after all our
engagement has been announced in all of the newspapers, and Henry’s
credit is really my credit.

So while I was thinking it all over there was a knock on the drawing
room door, so I told him to come in and it was a gentleman who said he
had seen me quite a lot in New York and he had always wanted to have an
introduction to me, because we had quite a lot of friends who were
common. So then he gave me his card and his name was on his card and it
was Mr. Gilbertson Montrose and his profession is a senario writer. So
then I asked him to sit down and we held a literary conversation.

So I really feel as if yesterday was a turning point in my life,
because at last I have met a gentleman who is not only an artist but
who has got brains besides. I mean he is the kind of a gentleman that a
girl could sit at his feet and listen to for days and days and nearly
always learn something or other. Because, after all, there is nothing
that gives a girl more of a thrill than brains in a gentleman,
especially after a girl has been spending the week end with Henry. So
Mr. Montrose talked and talked all of the way to New York and I sat
there and did nothing else but listen. So according to Mr. Montrose’s
opinion Shakespear is a very great playwrite, and he thinks that Hamlet
is quite a famous tragedy and as far as novels are concerned he
believes that nearly everybody had ought to read Dickens. And when we
got on the subject of poetry he recited “The Shooting of Dan McGrew”
until you could almost hear the gun go off.

And then I asked Mr. Montrose to tell me all about himself. So it seems
that Mr. Montrose was on his way home from Washington D. C., where he
went to see the Bulgarian Ambassadore to see if he could get Bulgaria
to finance a senario he has written which is a great historical subject
which is founded on the sex life of Dolly Madison. So it seems that Mr.
Montrose has met quite a lot of Bulgarians in a Bulgarian restaurant on
Lexington Avenue and that was what gave him the idea to get the money
from Bulgaria. Because Mr. Montrose said that he could fill his senario
full of Bulgarian propoganda, and he told the Bulgarian Ambassadore
that every time he realised how ignorant all of the American film fans
were on the subject of Bulgaria, it made him flinch.

So I told Mr. Montrose that it made me feel very very small to talk to
a gentleman like he, who knew so much about Bulgaria, because
practically all I knew about Bulgaria was Zoolack. So Mr. Montrose said
that the Bulgarian Ambassadore did not seem to think that Dolly Madison
had so much about her that was pertinent to present day Bulgaria, but
Mr. Montrose explained to him that that was because he knew practically
nothing about dramatic construction. Because Mr. Montrose said he could
fix his senario so that Dolly Madison would have one lover who was a
Bulgarian, who wanted to marry her. So then Dolly Madison would get to
wondering what her great, great grandchildren would be like if she
married a Bulgarian, and then she could sit down and have a vision of
Bulgaria in 1925. So that was when Mr. Montrose would take a trip to
Bulgaria to photograph the vision. But the Bulgarian Ambassadore turned
down the whole proposition, but he gave Mr. Montrose quite a large size
bottle of the Bulgarian national drink. So the Bulgarian national drink
looks like nothing so much as water, and it really does not taste so
strong, but about five minutes afterwards you begin to realise your
mistake. But I thought to myself that if realizing my mistake could
make me forget what I went through in Pennsylvania, I really owed it to
myself to forget everything. So then we had another drink.

So then Mr. Montrose told me that he had quite a hard time getting
along in the motion picture profession, because all of his senarios are
all over their head. Because when Mr. Montrose writes about sex, it is
full of sychology, but when everybody else writes about it, it is full
of nothing but transparent negligays and ornamental bath tubs. And Mr.
Montrose says that there is no future in the motion pictures until the
motion pictures get their sex motives straightened out, and realize
that a woman of 25 can have just as many sex problems as a flapper of
16. Because Mr. Montrose likes to write about women of the world, and
he refuses to have women of the world played by small size girls of 15
who know nothing about life and who have not even been in the detention
home.

So we both arrived in New York before we realized it, and I got to
thinking how the same trip with Henry in his Rolls Royce seemed like
about 24 hours, and that was what gave me the idea that money was not
everything, because after all, it is only brains that count. So Mr.
Montrose took me home and we are going to have luncheon together at the
Primrose Tea room practically every day and keep right on holding
literary conversations.

So then I had to figure out how to get rid of Henry and at the same
time not do anything that would make me any trouble later. So I sent
for Dorothy because Dorothy is not so good at intreeging a gentleman
with money, but she ought to be full of ideas on how to get rid of one.

So at first Dorothy said, Why didn’t I take a chance and marry Henry
because she had an idea that if Henry married me he would commit
suicide about two weeks later. But I told her about my plan to do quite
a lot of shopping, and I told her that I would send for Henry and I
would manage it so that I would not be in the apartment when he came,
but she could be there and start a conversation with him and she could
tell him about all of my shopping and how extravagant I seemed to be
and he would be in the poor house in less than a year if he married me.

So Dorothy said for me to take one farewell look at Henry and leave him
to her, because the next time I saw him would be in the witness box and
I might not even recognize him because she would throw a scare into him
that might change his whole physical appearance. So I decided to leave
him in the hands of Dorothy and hope for the best.



July 10th:

Well, last month was really almost a diary in itself, and I have to
begin to realize that I am one of the kind of girls that things happen
to. And I have to admit, after all, that life is really wonderful.
Because so much has happened in the last few weeks that it almost makes
a girl’s brains whirl.

I mean in the first place I went shopping at Cartiers and bought quite
a delightful square cut emerald and quite a long rope of pearls on
Henry’s credit. So then I called up Henry on the long distants
telephone and told him that I wanted to see him quite a lot, so he was
very very pleased and he said that he would come right up to New York.

So then I told Dorothy to come to the apartment and be there when Henry
came, and to show Henry what I bought on his credit, and to tell him
how extravagant I seem to be, and how I seem to keep on getting worse.
So I told Dorothy to go as far as she liked, so long as she did not
insinuate anything against my character, because the more spotless my
character seems to be, the better things might turn out later. So Henry
was due at the apartment about 1.20, so I had Lulu get some luncheon
for he and Dorothy and I told Dorothy to tell him that I had gone out
to look at the Russian Crown Jewels that some Russian Grand Duchess or
other had for sale at the Ritz.

So then I went to the Primrose Tea Room to have luncheon with Mr.
Montrose because Mr. Montrose loves to tell me of all his plans, and he
says that I seem to remind him quite a lot of a girl called Madame
Recamier who all the intelectual gentlemen used to tell all of their
plans to, even when there was a French revolution going on all around
them.

So Mr. Montrose and I had a delicious luncheon, except that I never
seem to notice what I am eating when I am with Mr. Montrose because
when Mr. Montrose talks a girl wants to do nothing but listen. But all
of the time I was listening, I was thinking about Dorothy and I was
worrying for fear Dorothy would go to far, and tell Henry something
that would not be so good for me afterwards. So finally even Mr.
Montrose seemed to notice it, and he said “What’s the matter little
woman, a penny for your thoughts.”

So then I told him everything. So he seemed to think quite a lot and
finally he said to me “It is really to bad that you feel as if the
social life of Mr. Spoffard bored you, because Mr. Spoffard would be
ideal to finance my senario.” So then Mr. Montrose said that he had
been thinking from the very first how ideal I would be to play Dolly
Madison. So that started me thinking and I told Mr. Montrose that I
expected to have quite a large size ammount of money later on, and I
would finance it myself. But Mr. Montrose said that would be to late,
because all of the motion picture corporations were after it now, and
it would be snaped up almost immediately.

So then I became almost in a panick, because I suddenly decided that if
I married Henry and worked in the motion pictures at the same time,
society life with Henry would not really be so bad. Because if a girl
was so busy as all that, it really would not seem to matter so much if
she had to stand Henry when she was not busy. But then I realized what
Dorothy was up to, and I told Mr. Montrose that I was almost afraid it
was to late. So I hurried to the telephone and I called up Dorothy at
the apartment and I asked her what she had said to Henry. So Dorothy
said that she showed him the square cut emerald and told him that I
bought it as a knick-knack to go with a green dress, but I had got a
spot on the dress, so I was going to give them both to Lulu. So she
said she showed him the pearls and she said that after I had bought
them, I was sorry I did not get pink ones because white ones were so
common, so I was going to have Lulu unstring them and sew them on a
negligay. So then she told him she was rather sorry I meant to buy the
Russian Crown jewels because she had a feeling they were unlucky, but
that I had said to her, that if I found out they were, I could toss
them over my left shoulder into the Hudson river some night when there
was a new moon, and it would take away the curse.

So then she said that Henry began to get restless. So then she told him
she was very glad I was going to get married at last because I had had
such bad luck, that every time I became engaged something seemed to
happen to my fiance. So Henry asked her what, for instance. So Dorothy
said a couple were in the insane asylum, one had shot himself for debt,
and the county farm was taking care of the remainder. So Henry asked
her how they got that way. So Dorothy told him it was nothing but my
extravagants, and she told him that she was surprised that he had never
heard about it, because all I had to do was to take luncheon at the
Ritz with some prominent broker and the next day the bottom would drop
out of the market. And she told him that she did not want to insinuate
anything, but that I had dined with a very, very prominent German the
day before German marks started to colapse.

So I became almost frantic and I told Dorothy to hold Henry at the
apartment until I could get up there and explain. So I held the
telephone while Dorothy went to see if Henry would wait. So Dorothy
came back in a minute and she said that the parlor was empty, but that
if I would hurry down to Broadway no doubt I would see a cloud of dust
heading towards the Pennsylvania station, and that would be Henry.

So then I went back to Mr. Montrose, and I told him that I must catch
Henry at the Pennsylvania Station at any cost. And if anyone were to
say that we left the Primrose tea room in a hurry, they would be
putting it quite mildly. So we got to the Pennsylvania station and I
just had time to get on board the train to Philadelphia and I left Mr.
Montrose standing at the train biting his finger nails in all of his
anxiety. But I called out to him to go to his Hotel and I would
telephone the result as soon as the train arrived.

So then I went through the train, and there was Henry with a look on
his face which I shall never forget. So when he saw me he really seemed
to shrink to ½ his natural size. So I sat down beside him and I told
him that I was really ashamed of how he acted, and if his love for me
could not stand a little test that I and Dorothy had thought up, more
in the spirit of fun than anything else, I never wanted to speak to
such a gentleman again. And I told him that if he could not tell the
difference between a real square cut emerald and one from the ten cent
store, that he had ought to be ashamed of himself. And I told him that
if he thought that every string of white beads were pearls, it was no
wonder he could make such a mistake in judging the character of a girl.
So then I began to cry because of all of Henry’s lack of faith. So then
he tried to cheer me up but I was to hurt to even give him a decent
word until we were past Newark. But by the time we were past Newark,
Henry was crying himself, and it always makes me feel so tender hearted
to listen to a gentleman cry that I finally forgave him. So, of course,
as soon as I got home I had to take them back to Cartiers.

So then I explained to Henry how I wanted our life to mean something
and I wanted to make the World a better place than it seemed to have
been yet. And I told him that he knew so much about the film profession
on account of senshuring all of the films that I thought he had ought
to go into the film profession. Because I told him that a gentleman
like he really owed it to the world to make pure films so that he could
be an example to all of the other film corporations and show the world
what pure films were like. So Henry became very, very intreeged because
he had never thought of the film profession before. So then I told him
that we could get H. Gilbertson Montrose to write the senarios, and he
to senshure them, and I could act in them and by the time we all got
through, they would be a work of art. But they would even be purer than
most works of art seem to be. So by the time we got to Philadelphia
Henry said that he would do it, but he really did not think I had ought
to act in them. But I told him from what I had seen of society women
trying to break into the films, I did not believe that it would be so
declasée if one of them really landed. So I even talked him into that.

So when we got to Henry’s country estate, we told all of Henry’s family
and they were all delighted. Because it is the first time since the war
that Henry’s family have had anything definite to put their minds on. I
mean Henry’s sister really jumped at the idea because she said she
would take charge of the studio trucks and keep them at a bed-rock
figure. So I even promised Henry’s mother that she could act in the
films. I mean I even believe that we could put in a close-up of her
from time to time, because after all, nearly every photoplay has to
have some comedy relief. And I promised Henry’s father that we would
wheel him through the studio and let him look at all of the actresses
and he nearly had another relapse. So then I called up Mr. Montrose and
made an appointment with him to meet Henry and talk it all over, and
Mr. Montrose, said, “Bless you, little woman.”

So I am almost beginning to believe it, when everybody says I am
nothing but sunshine because everybody I come into contract with always
seems to become happy. I mean with the exception of Mr. Eisman. Because
when I got back to New York, I opened all of his cablegrams and I
realized that he was due to arrive on the Aquitania the very next day.
So I met him at the Aquitania and I took him to luncheon at the Ritz
and I told him all about everything. So then he became very, very
depressed because he said that just as soon as he had got me all
educated, I had to go off and get married. But I told him that he
really ought to be very proud of me, because in the future, when he
would see me at luncheon at the Ritz as the wife of the famous Henry H.
Spoffard, I would always bow to him, if I saw him, and he could point
me out to all of his friends and tell them that it was he, Gus Eisman
himself, who educated me up to my station. So that cheered Mr. Eisman
up a lot and I really do not care what he says to his friends, because,
after all, his friends are not in my set, and whatever he says to them
will not get around in my circle. So after our luncheon was all over, I
really think that, even if Mr. Eisman was not so happy, he could not
help having a sort of a feeling of relief, especially when he thinks of
all my shopping.

So after that came my wedding and all of the Society people in New York
and Philadelphia came to my wedding and they were all so sweet to me,
because practically every one of them has written a senario. And
everybody says my wedding was very, very beautiful. I mean even Dorothy
said it was very beautiful, only Dorothy said she had to concentrate
her mind on the massacre of the Armenians to keep herself from laughing
right out loud in everybody’s face. But that only shows that not even
Matrimony is sacred to a girl like Dorothy. And after the wedding was
over, I overheard Dorothy talking to Mr. Montrose and she was telling
Mr. Montrose that she thought that I would be great in the movies if he
would write me a part that only had three expressions, Joy, Sorrow, and
Indigestion. So I do not really believe that Dorothy is such a true
friend after all.

So Henry and I did not go on any honeymoon because I told Henry that it
really would be selfish for us to go off alone together, when all of
our activities seemed to need us so much. Because, after all, I have to
spend quite a lot of time with Mr. Montrose going over the senario
together because, Mr. Montrose says I am full of nothing so much as
ideas.

So, in order to give Henry something to do while Mr. Montrose and I are
working on the senario I got Henry to organize a Welfare League among
all of the extra girls and get them to tell him all of their problems
so he can give them all of his spiritual aid. And it has really been a
very, very great success, because there is not much work going on at
the other studios at present so all of the extra girls have nothing
better to do and they all know that Henry will not give them a job at
our studio unless they belong. So the worse they tell Henry they have
been before they met him, the better he likes it and Dorothy says that
she was at the studio yesterday and she says that if the senarios those
extra girls have written around themselves to tell Henry could only be
screened and gotten past the sensors, the movies would move right up
out of their infancy.

So Henry says that I have opened up a whole new world for him and he
has never been so happy in his life. And it really seems as if everyone
I know has never been so happy in their lives. Because I make Henry let
his father come to the studio every day because, after all, every
studio has to have somebody who seems to be a pest, and in our case it
might just as well be Henry’s father. So I have given orders to all of
the electricians not to drop any lights on him, but to let him have a
good time because, after all, it is the first one he has had. And as
far as Henry’s mother is concerned, she is having her hair bobbed and
her face lifted and getting ready to play Carmen because she saw a girl
called Madam Calve play it when she was on her honeymoon and she has
always really felt that she could do it better. So I do not discouradge
her, but I let her go ahead and enjoy herself. But I am not going to
bother to speak to the electricians about Henry’s mother. And Henry’s
sister has never been so happy since the Battle of Verdun, because she
has six trucks and 15 horses to look after and she says that the motion
picture profession is the nearest thing to war that she has struck
since the Armistice. And even Dorothy is very happy because Dorothy
says that she has had more laughs this month than Eddie Cantor gets in
a year. But when it comes to Mr. Montrose, I really believe that he is
happier than anybody else, because of all of the understanding and
sympathy he seems to get out of me.

And so I am very happy myself because, after all, the greatest thing in
life is to always be making everybody else happy. And so, while
everybody is so happy, I really think it is a good time to finish my
diary because after all, I am to busy going over my senarios with Mr.
Montrose, to keep up any other kind of literary work. And I am so busy
bringing sunshine into the life of Henry that I really think, with
everything else I seem to acomplish, it is all a girl had ought to try
to do. And so I really think that I can say good-bye to my diary
feeling that, after all, everything always turns out for the best.



                                  THE END





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