Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (5 page)

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.