Dorothy is up on the deck wasting quite a lot of time with a gentleman who is [[53]]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 [[54]]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 [[55]]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 [[56]]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 [[58]]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.
“Mr. Bartlett said he did not sleep a wink since we became friendly.”
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 [[59]]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 [[60]]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. [[63]]