I've been worrying about poor Tad Warren's wife, bunch of us got together and made up a purse for her. Nothing more pathetic than these poor little women that poke down the cocktails to keep excited and then go to pieces.

I don't believe I was very decent to Tad. Sitting here alone in a hotel room, it seems twice as lonely after the fuss and feathers these last few days, a fellow thinks of all the rotten things he ever did. Poor old Tad. Too late now to cheer him up. Too late. Wonder if they shouldn't have called off race when he was killed.

Wish Istra wouldn't keep calling me up. Have I got to be rude to her? I'd like to be decent to her, but I can't stand the cocktail life. Lord, that time she danced, though.

Poor Tad was [See [Transcriber's note.]]

Oh hell, to get back to the reception. It was pretty big. Parade of the Aero Club and Squadron A, me in an open-face hack, feeling like a boob while sixty leven billion people cheered. Then reception by mayor, me delivering letter from mayor of Chicago which I had cutely sneaked out in Chicago and mailed to myself here, N. Y. general delivery, so I wouldn't lose it on the way. Then biggest dinner I've ever seen, must have been a thousand there, at the Astor, me very natty in a new dress suit (hey bo, I fooled them, it was ready-made and cost me just $37.50 and fitted like my skin.)

Mayor, presidents of boroughs of NY, district attorney, vice president of U.S., lieut. governor of NY, five or six senators, chief of ordnance, U.S.A., arctic explorers and hundreds like that, but most of all Forrest Haviland whom I got them to stick right up near me. Speeches mostly about me, I nearly rubbed the silver off my flossy new cigarette case keeping from looking foolish while they were telling about me and the future of aviation and all them interesting subjects.

Forrest and I sneaked off from the reporters next afternoon, had quiet dinner down in Chinatown.

We have a bully plan. If we can make it and if he can get leave we will explore the headwaters of the Amazon with a two-passenger Curtiss flying boat, maybe next year.

Now the reception fans have done their darndest and all the excitement is over including the shouting and I'm starting for Newport to hold a little private meet of my own, backed by Thomas J. Watersell, the steel magnate, and by to-morrow night NY will forget me. I realized that after the big dinner. I got on the subway at Times Square, jumped quick into the car just as the doors were closing, and the guard yapped at me, "What are you trying to do, Billy, kill yourself?" He wasn't spending much time thinking about famous Hawk Ericson, and I got to thinking how comfortable NY will manage to go on being when they no longer read in the morning paper whether I dined with the governor, or with Martin Dockerill at Bazoo Junction Depot Lunch Counter.

They forget us quick. And already there's a new generation of aviators. Some of the old giants are gone, poor Moisant and Hoxsey and Johnstone and the rest killed, and there's coming along a bunch of youngsters that can fly enough to grab the glory, and they spread out the glory pretty thin. They go us old fellows except Beachey a few better on aerial acrobatics, and that's what the dear pee-pul like. (For a socialist I certainly do despise the pee-pul's taste!) I won't do any flipflops in the air no matter what the county fair managers write me. Somehow I'd just as soon be alive and exploring the Amazon with old Forrest as dead after "brilliant feats of fearless daring." Go to it, kids, good luck, only test your supporting wires, and don't try to rival Lincoln Beachey, he's a genius.