PRINCE BORIS TO POLLY
Steamship Cleopatra,
The following day.
Dear Mademoiselle Avis,
Did you leave me last night when I try to join you on deck because you not like my letter or was it my foreign gesticulations which frightened you or you find my funs stupid? You angry when I kiss your hands in the moonlight perhaps? But why you not tell me your name and where you live when home?
You said me you just American girl called Polly the Pagan, and you would not interest me,—but you do interest me. Please do not be so jingoist. Is not this word one of your Franklin’s?
Ah! I believe you disappear because it is that we sail in a magic boat among the islands of the gods over water that is—what you call him—fairy water which is bewitched, and at sunset reflect the brilliant plumage of the phoenix and at night the silver of the lady moon.
Maybe men are stupid and women wicked? Was it possible to be more bad as Eve and more dull as Adam?
I say you goodbye, naughty girl.
Boris.