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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: A Critical Edition

Eddie Cantor

Eddie Cantor was a vaudeville, Broadway, and radio (later also film and television) actor who had appeared in numerous installments of the Ziegfield Follies since the mid-1910s. His specialty was comedic skits and songs. Perhaps relevant to Loos's allusion in the context of Blondes, Cantor performed a song in the early 1920s called "The Dumber They Come, The Better I Like 'Em", performed two minutes into the accompanying early sound film recording of his comedy and music routine.

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Chapter Six
BRAINS ARE REALLY EVERYTHING

June 14th:
   Well, Dorothy and I arrived at New York yesterday because Mr. Eisman finally decided to send us home because he said that all of his button profession would not stand the strain of educating me much more in Europe. So we separated from Mr. Eisman in Buda Pest because Mr. Eisman had to go to Berlin to look up all of his starving relatives in Berlin, who have done nothing but starve since the War, so he wrote me just before we sailed and he said that he had dug up all his starving relatives and he had looked them all over, and decided not to bring them to America because there was not one of his starving relatives who could travel on a railroad ticket without paying excess fare for overweight.
   So Dorothy and I took the boat and all the way over on the boat I had to make up my mind whether I really wanted to marry the famous Henry H. Spoffard, or not, because he was waiting for me to arrive at New York and he was so impatient that he could hardly wait for me to arrive at New York. But I have not wasted all of my time on Henry, even if I do not marry him, because I have some letters from Henry which would come in very, very handy if I did not marry Henry. So Dorothy seems to agree with me quite a lot, because Dorothy says the only thing she could stand being to Henry, would be to be his widow at the age of 18.
   So coming over on the boat I decided not to bother to meet any gentleman, because what good does it do to meet gentlemen when there is nothing to do on a boat but go shopping at a little shop where they do not have any thing that costs more than five dollars. And besides if I did meet any gentleman on the boat, he would want to see me off the boat, and then we would bump into Henry. But then I heard that there was a gentleman on the boat who was quite a dealer in unset diamonds from a town called Amsterdam. So I met the gentleman, and we went around together quite a lot, but we had quite a quarrel the night before we landed, so I did not even bother to look at him when I came down the gangplank, and I put the unset diamonds in my handbag so I did not have to declare them at the customs.
   So Henry was waiting for me at the customs, because he had come up from Pennsylvania to meet me, because their country estate is at Pennsylvania, and Henry’s father is very, very ill at Pennsylvania, so Henry has to stay there practically all of the time. So all of the reporters were at the customs and they all heard about how Henry and I were engaged to one another and they wanted to know what I was before I became engaged to Henry, so I told them that I was nothing but a society girl from Little Rock, Arkansas. So then I became quite angry with Dorothy because one of the reporters asked Dorothy when I made my debut in society at Little Rock and Dorothy said I made my debut at the Elks annual street fair and carnival at the age of 15. I mean Dorothy never overlooks any chance to be unrefined, even when she is talking to literary gentlemen like reporters.
   So Henry brought me to the apartment in his Rolls Royce, and while we were coming to the apartment he said he wanted to give me my engagement ring and I really became all thrills. So he said that he had gone to Cartiers and he had looked over all the engagement rings in Cartiers and after he had looked them all over he had decided that they were not half good enough for me. So then he took a box out of his pocket and I really became intreeged. So then Henry said that when he looked at all of those large size diamonds he really felt that they did not have any sentiment, so he was going to give me his class ring from Amherst College insted. So then I looked at him and looked at him, but I am to full of self controle to say anything at this stage of the game, so I said it was really very sweet of him to be so full of nothing but sentiment.
   So then Henry said that he would have to go back to Pennsylvania to talk to his father about us getting married, because his father has really got his heart set on us not getting married. So I told Henry that perhaps if I would meet his father, I would win him over, because I always seem to win gentlemen over. But Henry says that that is just the trouble, because some girl is always winning his father over, and they hardly dare to let him go out of their sight, and they hardly dare let him go to church alone. Because the last time he went to church alone some girl won him over on the street corner and he arrived back home with all of his pocket money gone, and they could not believe him when he said that he had put it in the plate, because he has not put more than a dime in the plate for the last fifty years.
   So it seems that the real reason why his father does not want Henry to marry me, is because his father says that Henry always has all of the fun, and every time Henry’s father wants to have some fun of his own, Henry always stops him and Henry will not even let him be sick at a hospital where he could have some fun of his own, but he keeps him at home where he has to have a nurse Henry picked out for him who is a male nurse. So all of his objections seem to be nothing but the spirit of resiprosity. But Henry says that all his objections cannot last much longer because he is nearly 90 years of age after all, and Nature must take its course sooner or later.
   So Dorothy says what a fool I am to waste my time on Henry, when I might manage to meet Henry’s father and the whole thing would be over in a few months and I would practically own the state of Pennsylvania. But I do not think I ought to take Dorothy’s advise because Henry’s father is watched like a hawk and Henry himself is his Power of Attorney, so no good could really come of it after all. And, after all, why should I listen to the advise of a girl like Dorothy who travelled all over Europe and all she came home with was a bangle!
   So Henry spent the evening at the apartment and then he had to go back to Pennsylvania to be there Thursday morning, because every Thursday morning he belongs to a society who do nothing but senshure all of the photoplays. So they cut out all of the pieces out of all the photoplays that show things that are riskay, that people ought not to look at. So then they put all of the riskay pieces together and they run them over and over again. So it would really be quite a hard thing to drag Henry away from one of his Thursday mornings and he can hardly wait from one Thursday morning to another. Because he really does not seem to enjoy anything so much as senshuring photoplays and after a photoplay has once been senshured he seems to lose all of his interest in it.
   So after Henry left I held quite a conversation with Lulu, who is my maid who looked out for my apartment while I was away. So Lulu really thinks I ought to marry Mr. Spoffard after all, because Lulu says that she kept studying Mr. Spoffard all of the time she was unpacking my trunks, and Lulu says she is sure that any time I feel as if I had to get away from Mr. Spoffard I could just set him down on the floor, and give him a packet of riskay french postcards to senshure and stay away as long as I like.
   So Henry is going to arrange for me to come down to Pennsylvania for a week-end and meet all of his family. But if all of Henry’s family are as full of reforms as Henry seems to be, it will be quite an ordeal even for a girl like I.

June 15th:
   Yesterday morning was quite an ordeal for a refined girl because all of the newspapers all printed the story of how Henry and I are engaged to one another, but they all seemed to leave out the part about me being a society girl except one newspaper, and that was the newspaper that quoted what Dorothy said about me being a debutant at the Elk’s Carnival. So I called up Dorothy at the Ritz and I told Dorothy that a girl like she ought to keep her mouth closed in the presents of reporters.
   So it seems that quite a lot of reporters kept calling Dorothy up but Dorothy said she really did not say anything to any of them except one reporter asked her what I used for money and she told him buttons. But Dorothy really should not have said such a thing, because quite a few people seem to know that Mr. Eisman is educating me and that he is known all over Chicago as Gus Eisman the Button King, so one thing might suggest another until people’s minds might begin to think something.
   But Dorothy said that she did not say anything more about me being a debutant at Little Rock, because after all Dorothy knows that I really did not make any debut in Little Rock, because just when it was time to make my debut, my gentleman friend Mr. Jennings became shot, and after the trial was over and all of the Jury had let me off, I was really much to fatigued to make any debut.
   So then Dorothy said, why don’t we throw a party now and you can become a debutant now and put them all in their place, because it seems that Dorothy is dying for a party. So that is really the first sensible suggestion that Dorothy has made yet, because I think that every girl who is engaged to a gentleman who has a fine old family like Henry, had really ought to be a debutant. So I told her to come right over and we would plan my debut but we would keep it very, very quiet and give it tomorrow night, because if Henry heard I was making my debut he would come up from Pennsylvania and he would practically spoil the party, because all Henry has to do to spoil a party is to arrive at it.
   So Dorothy came over and we planned my debut. So first we decided to have some engraved invitations engraved, but it always takes quite a little time to have invitations engraved, and it would really be foolish because all of the gentlemen we were going to invite to my debut were all members of the Racquet Club, so I could just write out a notice that I was having a debut and give it to Willie Gwynn and have Willie Gwynn post it on the Racquet Club board.
   So Willie Gwynn posted it on the club board and then he called me up and he told me that he had never seen so much enthusiasm since the Dempsey-Firpo fight, and he said that the whole Racquet Club would be there in a body. So then we had to plan about what girls we would ask to my debut. Because I have not seemed to meet so many society women yet because of course a girl does not meet society women until her debut is all over, and then all the society women all come and call on a debutant. But I know practically all of the society men, because practically all of the society men belong to the Racquet club, so after I have the Racquet Club at my debut, all I have to do to take my real place in society is to meet their mothers and sisters, because I know practically all of their sweethearts now.
   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 then I thought it all over and I thought that even if it was not etiquette to invite them to a party, it really would be etiquette to hire them to come to a party and be entertainers, and after they were entertainers they could mix in to the party and it really would not be a social error.
   So then the telephone rang and Dorothy answered it and it seems that it was Joe Sanguinetti, who is almost the official bootlegger for the whole Racquet Club, and Joe said he had heard about my debut and if he could come to my debut and bring his club which is the Silver Spray Social Club of Brooklyn, he would supply all of the liquor and he would guarantee to practically run the rum fleet up to the front door.
   So Dorothy told him he could come, and she hung up the telephone before she told me his proposition, and I became quite angry with Dorothy because, after all, the Silver Spray Social Club is not even mentioned in the Social Register and it has no place at a girl’s debut. But Dorothy said by the time the party got into swing, anyone would have to be a genius if he could tell whether he belonged to the Racquet Club, the Silver Spray Social Club, or the Knights of Pythias. But I really was almost sorry that I asked Dorothy to help plan my debut, except that Dorothy is very good to have at a party if the police come in, because Dorothy always knows how to manage the police, and I never knew a policeman yet who did not finish up by being madly in love with Dorothy. So then Dorothy called up all of the reporters on all of the newspapers and invited them all to my debut, so they could see it with their own eyes.
   So Dorothy says that she is going to see to it that my debut lands on the front page of all of the newspapers, if we have to commit a murder to do it.

June 19th:
   Well, it has been three days since my debut party started but I finally got tired and left the party last night and went to bed because I always seem to lose all of my interest in a party after a few days, but Dorothy never loses her interest in a party and when I woke up this morning Dorothy was just saying goodbye to some of the guests. I mean Dorothy seems to have quite a lot of vitality, because the last guests of the party were guests we picked up when the party went to take a swim at Long Beach the day before yesterday, and they were practically fresh, but Dorothy had gone clear through the party from beginning to end without even stopping to go to a Turkish bath as most of the gentlemen had to do. So my debut has really been very novel, because quite a lot of the guests who finished up at my debut were not the same guests that started out at it, and it is really quite novel for a girl to have so many different kinds of gentlemen at her debut. So it has really been a very great success because all of the newspapers have quite a lot of write-ups about my debut and I really felt quite proud when I saw the front page of the Daily Views and it said in large size headlines, “LORELEI’S DEBUT A WOW!” And Zits’ Weekly came right out and said that if this party marks my entrance into society, they only hope that they can live to see what I will spring once I have overcome my debutant reserve and taken my place in the world.
   So I really had to apologise to Dorothy about asking Joe Sanguinetti to my debut because it was wonderful the way he got all of the liquor to the party and he more than kept his word. I mean he had his bootleggers run up from the wharf in taxis, right to the apartment, and the only trouble he had was, that once the bootleggers delivered the liquor, he could not get them to leave the party. So finally there was quite a little quarrel because Willie Gwynn claimed that Joe’s bootleggers were snubbing the members of his club because they would not let the boys from the Racquet club sing in their quartet. But Joe’s bootleggers said that the Racquet club boys wanted to sing songs that were unrefined, while they wanted to sing songs about Mother. So then everybody started to take sides, but the girls from the Follies were all with Joe’s bootleggers from the start because practically all we girls were listening to them with tears steaming from our eyes. So that made the Racquet club jealous and one thing led to another until somebody rang for an ambulants and then the police came in.
   So Dorothy, as usual, won over all of the police. So it seems that the police all have orders from Judge Schultzmeyer, who is the famous judge who tries all of the prohibition cases, that any time they break into a party that looks like it was going to be a good party, to call him up no matter what time of the day or night it is, because Judge Schultzmeyer dearly loves a party. So the Police called up Judge Schultzmeyer and he was down in less than no time. So during the party both Joe Sanguinetti and Judge Schultzmeyer fell madly in love with Dorothy. So Joe and the Judge had quite a little quarrel and the Judge told Joe that if his stuff was fit to drink he would set the Law after him and confiscate it, but his stuff was not worth the while of any gentleman to confiscate who had any respect for his stomach, and he would not lower himself to confiscate it. So along about nine o’clock in the morning Judge Schultzmeyer had to leave the party and go to court to try all of the criminals who break all of the laws, so he had to leave Dorothy and Joe together and he was very very angry. And I really felt quite sorry for any person who went up before Judge Schultzmeyer that morning, because he gave everybody 90 days and was back at the party by twelve o’clock. So then he stuck to the party until we were all going down to Long Beach to take a swim day before yesterday when he seemed to become unconscious, so we dropped him off at a sanitorium in Garden City.
   So my debut party was really the greatest success of the social season, because the second night of my debut party was the night when Willie Gwynn’s sister was having a dance at the Gwynn estate on Long Island, and Willie Gwynn said that all of the eligible gentlemen in New York were conspicuous by their absents at his sister’s party, because they were all at my party. So it seems as if I am really going to be quite a famous hostess if I can just bring my mind to the point of being Mrs. Henry Spoffard Jr.
   Well Henry called up this morning and Henry said he had finally got his father’s mind so that he thought it was safe for me to meet him and he was coming up to get me this afternoon so that I can meet his family and see his famous old historical home at Pennsylvania. So then he asked about my debut party which some of the Philadelphia papers seemed to mention. But I told him that my debut was really not so much planned, as it was spontaneous, and I did not have the heart to call him up at a moments notice and take him away from his father at such a time for reasons which were nothing but social.
   So now I am getting ready to visit Henry’s family and I feel as if my whole future depends on it. Because if I can not stand Henry’s family any more than I can stand Henry the whole thing will probly come to an end in the law court.

June 21st:
   Well, I am now spending the weekend with Henry’s family at his old family mansion outside of Philadelphia, and I am beginning to think, after all, that there is something else in the world besides family. And I am beginning to think that family life is only fit for those who can stand it. For instants, they always seem to get up very early in Henry’s family. I mean it really is not so bad to get up early when there is something to get up early about, but when a girl gets up early and there is nothing to get up early about, it really begins to seem as if there was no sense to it.
   So yesterday we all got up early and that was when I met all of Henry’s family, because Henry and I motored down to Pennsylvania and everybody was in bed when we arrived because it was after nine o’clock. So in the morning Henry’s mother came to my room to get me up in time for breakfast because Henry’s mother is very very fond of me, and she always wants to copy all of my gowns and she always loves to look through all of my things to see what I have got. So she found a box of liqueur candies that are full of liqueurs and she was really very delighted. So I finally got dressed and she threw the empty box away and I helped her down stairs to the Dining room.
   So Henry was waiting in the dining room with his sister and that was when I met his sister. So it seems that Henry’s sister has never been the same since the war, because she never had on a man’s collar and a necktie until she drove an ambulants in the war, and now they cannot get her to take them off. Because ever since the armistice Henry’s sister seems to have the idea that regular womens clothes are effiminate. So Henry’s sister seems to think of nothing but either horses or automobiles and when she is not in a garage the only other place she is happy in is a stable. I mean she really pays very little attention to all of her family and she seems to pay less attention to Henry than anybody else because she seems to have the idea that Henry’s brains are not so viril. So then we all waited for Henry’s father to come in so that he could read the Bible out loud before breakfast.
   So then something happened that really was a miracle. Because it seems that Henry’s father has practically lived in a wheel chair for months and months and his male nurse has to wheel him everywhere. So his male nurse wheeled him into the dining room in his wheel chair and then Henry said “Father, this is going to be your little daughter in law,” and Henry’s father took one good look at me and got right out of his wheel chair and walked! So then everybody was very very surprised, but Henry was not so surprised because Henry knows his father like a book. So then they all tried to calm his father down, and his father tried to read out of the Bible but he could hardly keep his mind on the Bible and he could hardly eat a bite because when a gentleman is as feeble as Henry’s father is, he cannot keep one eye on a girl and the other eye on his cereal and cream without coming to grief. So Henry finally became quite discouradged and he told his father he would have to get back to his room or he would have a relapse. So then the male nurse wheeled him back to his room and it really was pathetic because he cried like a baby. So I got to thinking over what Dorothy advised me about Henry’s father and I really got to thinking that if Henry’s father could only get away from everybody and have some time of his own, Dorothy’s advise might not be so bad after all.
   So after breakfast we all got ready to go to church, but Henry’s sister does not go to church because Henry’s sister always likes to spend every Sunday in the garage taking their Ford farm truck apart and putting it back together again, and Henry says that what the war did to a girl like his sister is really worse than the war itself.
   So then Henry and his mother and I all went to church. So we came home from church and we had luncheon and it seems that luncheon is practically the same as breakfast except that Henry’s father could not come down to luncheon because after he met me he contracted such a vialent fever that they had to send for the Doctor.
   So in the afternoon Henry went to prayer meeting and I was left alone with Henry’s mother so that we could rest up so that we could go to church again after supper. So Henry’s mother thinks I am nothing but sunshine and she will hardly let me get out of her sight, because she hates to be by herself because, when she is by herself, her brains hardly seem to work at all. So she loves to try on all of my hats and she loves to tell me how all the boys in the choir can hardly keep their eyes off her. So of course a girl has to agree with her, and it is quite difficult to agree with a person when you have to do it through an ear trumpet because sooner or later your voice has to give out.
   So then supper turned out to be practically the same thing as luncheon only by supper time all of the novelty seemed to wear off. So then I told Henry that I had to much of a headache to go to church again, so Henry and his mother went to church and I went to my room and I sat down and thought and I decided that life was really to short to spend it in being proud of your family, even if they did have a great deal of money. So the best thing for me to do is to think up some scheme to make Henry decide not to marry me and take what I can get out of it and be satisfied.

June 22nd:
   Well, yesterday I made Henry put me on the train at Philadelphia and I made him stay at Philadelphia so he could be near his father if his father seemed to take any more relapses. So I sat in my drawing room on the train and I decided that the time had come to get rid of Henry at any cost. 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 our engagement has been announced in all of the newspapers, and Henry’s credit is really my credit.
   So while I was thinking it all over there was a knock on the drawing room door, so I told him to come in and it was a gentleman who said he had seen me quite a lot in New York and he had always wanted to have an introduction to me, because we had quite a lot of friends who were common. So then he gave me his card and his name was on his card and it was Mr. Gilbertson Montrose and his profession is a senario writer. So then I asked him to sit down and we held a literary conversation.
   So I really feel as if yesterday was a turning point in my life, because at last I have met a gentleman who is not only an artist but who has got brains besides. I mean he is the kind of a gentleman that a girl could sit at his feet and listen to for days and days and nearly always learn something or other. Because, after all, there is nothing that gives a girl more of a thrill than brains in a gentleman, especially after a girl has been spending the week end with Henry. So Mr. Montrose talked and talked all of the way to New York and I sat there and did nothing else but listen. So according to Mr. Montrose’s opinion Shakespear is a very great playwrite, and he thinks that Hamlet is quite a famous tragedy and as far as novels are concerned he believes that nearly everybody had ought to read Dickens. And when we got on the subject of poetry he recited “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” until you could almost hear the gun go off.
   And then I asked Mr. Montrose to tell me all about himself. So it seems that Mr. Montrose was on his way home from Washington D. C., where he went to see the Bulgarian Ambassadore to see if he could get Bulgaria to finance a senario he has written which is a great historical subject which is founded on the sex life of Dolly Madison. So it seems that Mr. Montrose has met quite a lot of Bulgarians in a Bulgarian restaurant on Lexington Avenue and that was what gave him the idea to get the money from Bulgaria. Because Mr. Montrose said that he could fill his senario full of Bulgarian propoganda, and he told the Bulgarian Ambassadore that every time he realised how ignorant all of the American film fans were on the subject of Bulgaria, it made him flinch.
   So I told Mr. Montrose that it made me feel very very small to talk to a gentleman like he, who knew so much about Bulgaria, because practically all I knew about Bulgaria was Zoolack. So Mr. Montrose said that the Bulgarian Ambassadore did not seem to think that Dolly Madison had so much about her that was pertinent to present day Bulgaria, but Mr. Montrose explained to him that that was because he knew practically nothing about dramatic construction. Because Mr. Montrose said he could fix his senario so that Dolly Madison would have one lover who was a Bulgarian, who wanted to marry her. So then Dolly Madison would get to wondering what her great, great grandchildren would be like if she married a Bulgarian, and then she could sit down and have a vision of Bulgaria in 1925. So that was when Mr. Montrose would take a trip to Bulgaria to photograph the vision. But the Bulgarian Ambassadore turned down the whole proposition, but he gave Mr. Montrose quite a large size bottle of the Bulgarian national drink. So the Bulgarian national drink looks like nothing so much as water, and it really does not taste so strong, but about five minutes afterwards you begin to realise your mistake. But I thought to myself that if realizing my mistake could make me forget what I went through in Pennsylvania, I really owed it to myself to forget everything. So then we had another drink.
   So then Mr. Montrose told me that he had quite a hard time getting along in the motion picture profession, because all of his senarios are all over their head. Because when Mr. Montrose writes about sex, it is full of sychology, but when everybody else writes about it, it is full of nothing but transparent negligays and ornamental bath tubs. And Mr. Montrose says that there is no future in the motion pictures until the motion pictures get their sex motives straightened out, and realize that a woman of 25 can have just as many sex problems as a flapper of 16. Because Mr. Montrose likes to write about women of the world, and he refuses to have women of the world played by small size girls of 15 who know nothing about life and who have not even been in the detention home.
   So we both arrived in New York before we realized it, and I got to thinking how the same trip with Henry in his Rolls Royce seemed like about 24 hours, and that was what gave me the idea that money was not everything, because after all, it is only brains that count. So Mr. Montrose took me home and we are going to have luncheon together at the Primrose Tea room practically every day and keep right on holding literary conversations.
   So then I had to figure out how to get rid of Henry and at the same time not do anything that would make me any trouble later. So I sent for Dorothy because Dorothy is not so good at intreeging a gentleman with money, but she ought to be full of ideas on how to get rid of one.
   So at first Dorothy said, Why didn’t I take a chance and marry Henry because she had an idea that if Henry married me he would commit suicide about two weeks later. But I told her about my plan to do quite a lot of shopping, and I told her that I would send for Henry and I would manage it so that I would not be in the apartment when he came, but she could be there and start a conversation with him and she could tell him about all of my shopping and how extravagant I seemed to be and he would be in the poor house in less than a year if he married me.
   So Dorothy said for me to take one farewell look at Henry and leave him to her, because the next time I saw him would be in the witness box and I might not even recognize him because she would throw a scare into him that might change his whole physical appearance. So I decided to leave him in the hands of Dorothy and hope for the best.

July 10th:
   Well, last month was really almost a diary in itself, and I have to begin to realize that I am one of the kind of girls that things happen to. And I have to admit, after all, that life is really wonderful. Because so much has happened in the last few weeks that it almost makes a girl’s brains whirl.
   I mean in the first place I went shopping at Cartiers and bought quite a delightful square cut emerald and quite a long rope of pearls on Henry’s credit. So then I called up Henry on the long distants telephone and told him that I wanted to see him quite a lot, so he was very very pleased and he said that he would come right up to New York.
   So then I told Dorothy to come to the apartment and be there when Henry came, and to show Henry what I bought on his credit, and to tell him how extravagant I seem to be, and how I seem to keep on getting worse. So I told Dorothy to go as far as she liked, so long as she did not insinuate anything against my character, because the more spotless my character seems to be, the better things might turn out later. So Henry was due at the apartment about 1.20, so I had Lulu get some luncheon for he and Dorothy and I told Dorothy to tell him that I had gone out to look at the Russian Crown Jewels that some Russian Grand Duchess or other had for sale at the Ritz.
   So then I went to the Primrose Tea Room to have luncheon with Mr. Montrose because Mr. Montrose loves to tell me of all his plans, and he says that I seem to remind him quite a lot of a girl called Madame Recamier who all the intelectual gentlemen used to tell all of their plans to, even when there was a French revolution going on all around them.
   So Mr. Montrose and I had a delicious luncheon, except that I never seem to notice what I am eating when I am with Mr. Montrose because when Mr. Montrose talks a girl wants to do nothing but listen. 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 if the social life of Mr. Spoffard bored you, because Mr. Spoffard would be ideal to finance my senario.” So then Mr. Montrose said that he had been thinking from the very first how ideal I would be to play Dolly Madison. So that started me thinking and I told Mr. Montrose that I expected to have quite a large size ammount of money later on, and I would finance it myself. But Mr. Montrose said that would be to late, because all of the motion picture corporations were after it now, and it would be snaped up almost immediately.
   So then I became almost in a panick, because I suddenly decided that if I married Henry and worked in the motion pictures at the same time, society life with Henry would not really be so bad. Because if a girl was so busy as all that, it really would not seem to matter so much if she had to stand Henry when she was not busy. But then I realized what Dorothy was up to, and I told Mr. Montrose that I was almost afraid it was to late. So I hurried to the telephone and I called up Dorothy at the apartment and I asked her what she had said to Henry. So Dorothy said that she showed him the square cut emerald and told him that I bought it as a knick-knack to go with a green dress, but I had got a spot on the dress, so I was going to give them both to Lulu. So she said she showed him the pearls and she said that after I had bought them, I was sorry I did not get pink ones because white ones were so common, so I was going to have Lulu unstring them and sew them on a negligay. So then she told him she was rather sorry I meant to buy the Russian Crown jewels because she had a feeling they were unlucky, but that I had said to her, that if I found out they were, I could toss them over my left shoulder into the Hudson river some night when there was a new moon, and it would take away the curse.
   So then she said that Henry began to get restless. So then she told him she was very glad I was going to get married at last because I had had such bad luck, that every time I became engaged something seemed to happen to my fiance. So Henry asked her what, for instance. So Dorothy said a couple were in the insane asylum, one had shot himself for debt, and the county farm was taking care of the remainder. So Henry asked her how they got that way. So Dorothy told him it was nothing but my extravagants, and she told him that she was surprised that he had never heard about it, because all I had to do was to take luncheon at the Ritz with some prominent broker and the next day the bottom would drop out of the market. And she told him that she did not want to insinuate anything, but that I had dined with a very, very prominent German the day before German marks started to colapse.
   So I became almost frantic and I told Dorothy to hold Henry at the apartment until I could get up there and explain. So I held the telephone while Dorothy went to see if Henry would wait. So Dorothy came back in a minute and she said that the parlor was empty, but that if I would hurry down to Broadway no doubt I would see a cloud of dust heading towards the Pennsylvania station, and that would be Henry.
   So then I went back to Mr. Montrose, and I told him that I must catch Henry at the Pennsylvania Station at any cost. And if anyone were to say that we left the Primrose tea room in a hurry, they would be putting it quite mildly. So we got to the Pennsylvania station and I just had time to get on board the train to Philadelphia and I left Mr. Montrose standing at the train biting his finger nails in all of his anxiety. But I called out to him to go to his Hotel and I would telephone the result as soon as the train arrived.
   So then I went through the train, and there was Henry with a look on his face which I shall never forget. So when he saw me he really seemed to shrink to 1/2 his natural size. So I sat down beside him and I told him that I was really ashamed of how he acted, and if his love for me could not stand a little test that I and Dorothy had thought up, more in the spirit of fun than anything else, I never wanted to speak to such a gentleman again. And I told him that if he could not tell the difference between a real square cut emerald and one from the ten cent store, that he had ought to be ashamed of himself. And I told him that if he thought that every string of white beads were pearls, it was no wonder he could make such a mistake in judging the character of a girl. So then I began to cry because of all of Henry’s lack of faith. So then he tried to cheer me up but I was to hurt to even give him a decent word until we were past Newark. But by the time we were past Newark, Henry was crying himself, and it always makes me feel so tender hearted to listen to a gentleman cry that I finally forgave him. So, of course, as soon as I got home I had to take them back to Cartiers.
   So then I explained to Henry how I wanted our life to mean something and I wanted to make the World a better place than it seemed to have been yet. And I told him that he knew so much about the film profession on account of senshuring all of the films that I thought he had ought to go into the film profession. Because I told him that a gentleman like he really owed it to the world to make pure films so that he could be an example to all of the other film corporations and show the world what pure films were like. So Henry became very, very intreeged because he had never thought of the film profession before. So then I told him that we could get H. Gilbertson Montrose to write the senarios, and he to senshure them, and I could act in them and by the time we all got through, they would be a work of art. But they would even be purer than most works of art seem to be. So by the time we got to Philadelphia Henry said that he would do it, but he really did not think I had ought to act in them. But I told him from what I had seen of society women trying to break into the films, I did not believe that it would be so declasée if one of them really landed. So I even talked him into that.
   So when we got to Henry’s country estate, we told all of Henry’s family and they were all delighted. Because it is the first time since the war that Henry’s family have had anything definite to put their minds on. I mean Henry’s sister really jumped at the idea because she said she would take charge of the studio trucks and keep them at a bed-rock figure. So I even promised Henry’s mother that she could act in the films. I mean I even believe that we could put in a close-up of her from time to time, because after all, nearly every photoplay has to have some comedy relief. And I promised Henry’s father that we would wheel him through the studio and let him look at all of the actresses and he nearly had another relapse. So then I called up Mr. Montrose and made an appointment with him to meet Henry and talk it all over, and Mr. Montrose, said, “Bless you, little woman.”
   So I am almost beginning to believe it, when everybody says I am nothing but sunshine because everybody I come into contract with always seems to become happy. I mean with the exception of Mr. Eisman. Because when I got back to New York, I opened all of his cablegrams and I realized that he was due to arrive on the Aquitania the very next day. So I met him at the Aquitania and I took him to luncheon at the Ritz and I told him all about everything. So then he became very, very depressed because he said that just as soon as he had got me all educated, I had to go off and get married. But I told him that he really ought to be very proud of me, because in the future, when he would see me at luncheon at the Ritz as the wife of the famous Henry H. Spoffard, I would always bow to him, if I saw him, and he could point me out to all of his friends and tell them that it was he, Gus Eisman himself, who educated me up to my station. So that cheered Mr. Eisman up a lot and I really do not care what he says to his friends, because, after all, his friends are not in my set, and whatever he says to them will not get around in my circle. So after our luncheon was all over, I really think that, even if Mr. Eisman was not so happy, he could not help having a sort of a feeling of relief, especially when he thinks of all my shopping.
   So after that came my wedding and all of the Society people in New York and Philadelphia came to my wedding and they were all so sweet to me, because practically every one of them has written a senario. And everybody says my wedding was very, very beautiful. I mean even Dorothy said it was very beautiful, only Dorothy said she had to concentrate her mind on the massacre of the Armenians to keep herself from laughing right out loud in everybody’s face. But that only shows that not even Matrimony is sacred to a girl like Dorothy. And after the wedding was over, I overheard Dorothy talking to Mr. Montrose and she was telling Mr. Montrose that she thought that I would be great in the movies if he would write me a part that only had three expressions, Joy, Sorrow, and Indigestion. So I do not really believe that Dorothy is such a true friend after all.
   So Henry and I did not go on any honeymoon because I told Henry that it really would be selfish for us to go off alone together, when all of our activities seemed to need us so much. Because, after all, I have to spend quite a lot of time with Mr. Montrose going over the senario together because, Mr. Montrose says I am full of nothing so much as ideas.
   So, in order to give Henry something to do while Mr. Montrose and I are working on the senario I got Henry to organize a Welfare League among all of the extra girls and get them to tell him all of their problems so he can give them all of his spiritual aid. And it has really been a very, very great success, because there is not much work going on at the other studios at present so all of the extra girls have nothing better to do and they all know that Henry will not give them a job at our studio unless they belong. So the worse they tell Henry they have been before they met him, the better he likes it and Dorothy says that she was at the studio yesterday and she says that if the senarios those extra girls have written around themselves to tell Henry could only be screened and gotten past the sensors, the movies would move right up out of their infancy.
   So Henry says that I have opened up a whole new world for him and he has never been so happy in his life. And it really seems as if everyone I know has never been so happy in their lives. Because I make Henry let his father come to the studio every day because, after all, every studio has to have somebody who seems to be a pest, and in our case it might just as well be Henry’s father. So I have given orders to all of the electricians not to drop any lights on him, but to let him have a good time because, after all, it is the first one he has had. And as far as Henry’s mother is concerned, she is having her hair bobbed and her face lifted and getting ready to play Carmen because she saw a girl called Madam Calve play it when she was on her honeymoon and she has always really felt that she could do it better. So I do not discouradge her, but I let her go ahead and enjoy herself. But I am not going to bother to speak to the electricians about Henry’s mother. And Henry’s sister has never been so happy since the Battle of Verdun, because she has six trucks and 15 horses to look after and she says that the motion picture profession is the nearest thing to war that she has struck since the Armistice. And even Dorothy is very happy because Dorothy says that she has had more laughs this month than Eddie Cantor gets in a year. But when it comes to Mr. Montrose, I really believe that he is happier than anybody else, because of all of the understanding and sympathy he seems to get out of me.
   And so I am very happy myself because, after all, the greatest thing in life is to always be making everybody else happy. And so, while everybody is so happy, I really think it is a good time to finish my diary because after all, I am to busy going over my senarios with Mr. Montrose, to keep up any other kind of literary work. And I am so busy bringing sunshine into the life of Henry that I really think, with everything else I seem to acomplish, it is all a girl had ought to try to do. And so I really think that I can say good-bye to my diary feeling that, after all, everything always turns out for the best.

THE END
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A Few Moments with Eddie Cantor