Anita Loos

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [154] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [35] 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 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 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. ”

“ 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 [206] if the social life of Mr. Spoffard bored you, because Mr. Spoffard would be ideal to finance my senario.” ”

“ 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 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 [40] 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 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 [24] 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. ”

“ 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 [142] 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 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.” ”

“ 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 [96] be done. So Dorothy will really never have any reverance. ”

“ 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 [198] our engagement has been announced in all of the newspapers, and Henry’s credit is really my credit. ”

“ 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. ”