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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: A Critical Edition

H.L. Mencken

H.L. Mencken was a prominent journalist, editor, and cultural commentator with a penchant for satire, who Anita Loos cited in several accounts of the genesis of Blondes as her intellectual idol and the originally intended private audience of its first chapter. She also cited Mencken as the reason for Lorelei's home town of Little Rock, Arkansas. The "green magazine" refers to The American Mercury, edited by Mencken and George Jean Nathan beginning in 1924. Mencken suggested to Loos that she publish the first chapter of Blondes in Harper's Bazar because it wasn't serious enough for The American Mercury (Loos, A Girl Like I).

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Chapter Two
FATE KEEPS ON HAPPENING

April 11th:
   Well Dorothy and I are really on the ship sailing to Europe as anyone could tell by looking at the ocean. I always love the ocean. I mean I always love a ship and I really love the Majestic because you would not know it was a ship because it is just like being at the Ritz, and the steward says the ocean is not so obnoxious this month as it generally is. So Mr. Eisman is going to meet us next month in Paris because he has to be there on business. I mean he always says that there is really no place to see the latest styles in buttons like Paris.
   So Dorothy is out taking a walk up and down the deck with a gentleman she met on the steps, but I am not going to waste my time going around with gentlemen because if I did nothing but go around I would not finish my diary or read good books which I am always reading to improve my mind. But Dorothy really does not care about her mind and I always scold her because she does nothing but waste her time by going around with gentlemen who do not have anything, when Eddie Goldmark of the Goldmark Films is really quite wealthy and can make a girl delightful presents. But she does nothing but waste her time and yesterday, which was really the day before we sailed, she would not go to luncheon with Mr. Goldmark but she went to luncheon to meet a gentleman called Mr. Mencken from Baltimore who really only prints a green magazine which has not even got any pictures in it. But Mr. Eisman is always saying that every girl does not want to get ahead and get educated like me.
   So Mr. Eisman and Lulu come down to the boat to see me off and Lulu cried quite a lot. I mean I really believe she could not care any more for me if she was light and not colored. Lulu has had a very sad life because when she was quite young a pullman porter fell madly in love with her. So she believed him and he lured her away from her home to Ashtabula and deceived her there. So she finally found out that she had been deceived and she really was broken hearted and when she tried to go back home she found out that it was to late because her best girl friend, who she had always trusted, had stolen her husband and he would not take Lulu back. So I have always said to her she could always work for me and she is going to take care of the apartment until I get back, because I would not sublet the apartment because Dorothy sublet her apartment when she went to Europe last year and the gentleman who sublet the apartment allowed girls to pay calls on him who were not nice.
   Mr. Eisman has litereally filled our room with flowers and the steward has had quite a hard time to find enough vases to put them into. I mean the steward said he knew as soon as he saw Dorothy and I that he would have quite a heavy run on vases. And of course Mr. Eisman has sent me quite a lot of good books as he always does, because he always knows that good books are always welcome. So he has sent me quite a large book of Etiquette as he says there is quite a lot of Etiquette in England and London and it would be a good thing for a girl to learn. So I am going to take it on the deck after luncheon and read it, because I would often like to know what a girl ought to do when a gentleman she has just met, says something to her in a taxi. Of course I always become quite vexed but I always believe in giving a gentleman another chance.
   So now the steward tells me it is luncheon time, so I will go upstairs as the gentleman Dorothy met on the steps has invited us to luncheon in the Ritz, which is a special dining room on the ship where you can spend quite a lot of money because they really give away the food in the other dining room.

April 12th:
   I am going to stay in bed this morning as I am quite upset as I saw a gentleman who quite upset me. I am not really sure it was the gentleman, as I saw him at quite a distants in the bar, but if it really is the gentleman it shows that when a girl has a lot of fate in her life it is sure to keep on happening. So when I thought I saw this gentleman I was with Dorothy and Major Falcon, who is the gentleman Dorothy met on the steps, and Major Falcon noticed that I became upset, so he wanted me to tell him what was the matter, but it is really so terrible that I would not want to tell anyone. So I said good night to Major Falcon and I left him with Dorothy and I went down to our room and did nothing but cry and send the steward for some champagne to cheer me up. I mean champagne always makes me feel philosophical because it makes me realize that when a girl’s life is as full of fate as mine seems to be, there is nothing else to do about it. So this morning the steward brought me my coffee and quite a large pitcher of ice water so I will stay in bed and not have any more champagne until luncheon time.
   Dorothy never has any fate in her life and she does nothing but waste her time and I really wonder if I did right to bring her with me and not Lulu. I mean she really gives gentlemen a bad impression as she talks quite a lot of slang. Because when I went up yesterday to meet she and Major Falcon for luncheon, I overheard her say to Major Falcon that she really liked to become intoxicated once in a “dirty” while. Only she did not say intoxicated, but she really said a slang word that means intoxicated and I am always having to tell her that “dirty” is a slang word and she really should not say “dirty.”
   Major Falcon is really quite a delightful gentleman for an Englishman. I mean he really spends quite a lot of money and we had quite a delightful luncheon and dinner in the Ritz until I thought I saw the gentleman who upset me and I am so upset I think I will get dressed and go up on the deck and see if it really is the one I think it is. I mean there is nothing else for me to do as I have finished writing in my diary for today and I have decided not to read the book of Ettiquette as I glanced through it and it does not seem to have anything in it that I would care to know because it wastes quite a lot of time telling you what to call a Lord and all the Lords I have met have told me what to call them and it is generally some quite cute name like Coocoo whose real name is really Lord Cooksleigh. So I will not waste my time on such a book. But I wish I did not feel so upset about the gentleman I think I saw.

April 13th:
   It really is the gentleman I thought I saw. I mean when I found out it was the gentleman my heart really stopped. Because it all brought back things that anybody does not like to remember, no matter who they are. So yesterday when I went up on the deck to see if I could see the gentleman and see if it really was him, I met quite a delightful gentleman who I met once at a party called Mr. Ginzberg. Only his name is not Mr. Ginzberg any more because a gentleman in London called Mr. Battenburg, who is some relation to some king, changed his name to Mr. Mountbatten which Mr. Ginzberg says really means the same thing after all. So Mr. Ginsberg changed his name to Mr. Mountginz which he really thinks is more aristocratic. So we walked around the deck and we met the gentleman face to face and I really saw it was him and he really saw it was me. I mean his face became so red it was almost a picture. So I was so upset I said good-bye to Mr. Mountginz and I started to rush right down to my room and cry. But when I was going down the steps, I bumped right into Major Falcon who noticed that I was upset. So Major Falcon made me go to the Ritz and have some champagne and tell him all about it.
   So then I told Major Falcon about the time in Arkansas when Papa sent me to Little Rock to study how to become a stenographer. I mean Papa and I had quite a little quarrel because Papa did not like a gentleman who used to pay calls on me in the park and Papa thought it would do me good to get away for awhile. So I was in the business colledge in Little Rock for about a week when a gentleman called Mr. Jennings paid a call on the business colledge because he wanted to have a new stenographer. So he looked over all we colledge girls and he picked me out. So he told our teacher that he would help me finish my course in his office because he was only a lawyer and I really did not have to know so much. So Mr. Jennings helped me quite a lot and I stayed in his office about a year when I found out that he was not the kind of a gentleman that a young girl is safe with. I mean one evening when I went to pay a call on him at his apartment, I found a girl there who really was famous all over Little Rock for not being nice. So when I found out that girls like that paid calls on Mr. Jennings I had quite a bad case of histerics and my mind was really a blank and when I came out of it, it seems that I had a revolver in my hand and it seems that the revolver had shot Mr. Jennings.
   So this gentleman on the boat was really the District Attorney who was at the trial and he really was quite harsh at the trial and he called me names that I would not even put in my diary. Because everyone at the trial except the District Attorney was really lovely to me and all the gentlemen in the jury all cried when my lawyer pointed at me and told them that they practically all had had either a mother or a sister. So the jury was only out three minutes and then they came back and acquitted me and they were all so lovely that I really had to kiss all of them and when I kissed the judge he had tears in his eyes and he took me right home to his sister. I mean it was when Mr. Jennings became shot that I got the idea to go into the cinema, so Judge Hibbard got me a ticket to Hollywood. So it was Judge Hibbard who really gave me my name because he did not like the name I had because he said a girl ought to have a name that ought to express her personality. So he said my name ought to be Lorelei which is the name of a girl who became famous for sitting on a rock in Germany. So I was in Hollywood in the cinema when I met Mr. Eisman and he said that a girl with my brains ought not to be in the cinema but she ought to be educated, so he took me out of the cinema so he could educate me.
   So Major Falcon was really quite interested in everything I talked about, because he said it was quite a co-instance because this District Attorney, who is called Mr. Bartlett, is now working for the government of America and he is on his way to a place called Vienna on some business for Uncle Sam that is quite a great secret and Mr. Falcon would like very much to know what the secret is, because the Government in London sent him to America especially to find out what it was. Only of course Mr. Bartlett does not know who Major Falcon is, because it is such a great secret, but Major Falcon can tell me, because he knows who he can trust. So Major Falcon says he thinks a girl like I ought to forgive and forget what Mr. Bartlett called me and he wants to bring us together and he says he thinks Mr. Bartlett would talk to me quite a lot when he really gets to know me and I forgive him for that time in Little Rock. Because it would be quite romantic for Mr. Bartlett and I to become friendly, and gentlemen who work for Uncle Sam generally like to become romantic with girls. So he is going to bring us together on the deck after dinner tonight and I am going to forgive him and talk with him quite a lot, because why should a girl hold a grudge against a gentleman who had to do it. So Major Falcon brought me quite a large bottle of perfume and a quite cute imitation of quite a large size dog in the little shop which is on board the boat. I mean Major Falcon really knows how to cheer a girl up quite a lot and so tonight I am going to make it all up with Mr. Bartlett.

April 14th:
   Well Mr. Bartlett and I made it all up last night and we are going to be the best of friends and talk quite a lot. So when I went down to my room quite late Major Falcon came down to see if I and Mr. Bartlett were really going to be friends because he said a girl with brains like I ought to have lots to talk about with a gentleman with brains like Mr. Bartlett who knows all of Uncle Sam’s secrets.
   So I told Major Falcon how Mr. Bartlett thinks that he and I seem to be like a play, because all the time he was calling me all those names in Little Rock he really thought I was. So when he found out that I turned out not to be, he said he always thought that I only used my brains against gentlemen and really had quite a cold heart. But now he thinks I ought to write a play about how he called me all those names in Little Rock and then, after seven years, we became friendly.
   So I told Major Falcon that I told Mr. Bartlett I would like to write the play but I really did not have time as it takes quite a lot of time to write my diary and read good books. So Mr. Bartlett did not know that I read books which is quite a co-instance because he reads them to. So he is going to bring me a book of philosophy this afternoon called “Smile, Smile, Smile” which all the brainy senators in Washington are reading which cheers you up quite a lot.
   So I told Major Falcon that having a friendship with Mr. Barlett was really quite enervating because Mr. Bartlett does not drink anything and the less anybody says about his dancing the better. But he did ask me to dine at his table, which is not in the Ritz and I told him I could not, but Major Falcon told me I ought to, but I told Major Falcon that there was a limit to almost everything. So I am going to stay in my room until luncheon and I am going to luncheon in the Ritz with Mr. Mountginz who really knows how to treat a girl.
   Dorothy is up on the deck wasting quite a lot of time with a gentleman who is 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 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 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 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 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.
   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 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 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.
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"Criticism Fails"