Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - Anita Loos (reading well .TXT) 📗

and that is really the only sensible thing that Dorothy has said in London. So we did not bother to get out.

So we did not go to any more sights because they really have delicious champagne cocktails at a very very smart new restaurant called the Café de Paris that you could not get in New York for neither love or money and I told Piggie that when you are travelling you really ought to take advantadges of what you can not do at home.

So while Dorothy and I were in the Café de Paris powdering our nose in the lady’s dressing room we met an American girl who Dorothy knew in the Follies, but now she is living in London. So she told us all about London. So it seems the gentlemen in London have quite a quaint custom of not giving a girl many presents. I mean the English girls really seem to be satisfied with a gold cigaret holder or else what they call a “bangle” which means a bracelet in English which is only gold and does not have any stones in it which American girls would really give to their maid. So she said you could tell what English gentlemen were like when you realize that not even English ladys could get anything out of them. So she said Sir Francis Beekman was really famous all over London for not spending so much money as most English gentlemen. So then Dorothy and I said goodbye to Dorothy’s girl friend and Dorothy said, “Lets tell our two boy friends that we have a headache and go back to the Ritz, where men are Americans.” Because Dorothy said that the society of a gentleman like Sir Francis Beekman was to great a price to pay for a couple of rounds of champagne cocktails. But I told Dorothy that I always believe that there is nothing like trying and I think it would be nice for an American girl like I to educate an English gentleman like Piggie, as I call Sir Francis Beekman.

So then we went back to the table and I almost have to admit that Dorothy is in the right about Piggie because he really likes to talk quite a lot and he is always talking about a friend of his who was quite a famous King in London called King Edward. So Piggie said he would never never forget the jokes King Edward was always saying and he would never forget one time they were all on a yacht and they were all sitting at a table and King Edward got up and said “I don’t care what you gentlemen do⁠—I’m going to smoke a cigar.” So then Piggie laughed very, very loud. So of course I laughed very, very loud and I told Piggie he was wonderful the way he could tell jokes. I mean you can always tell when to laugh because Piggie always laughs first.

So in the afternoon a lot of lady friends of Mrs. Weeks heard about me buying the diamond tiara and called us up and asked us to their house to tea so Dorothy and I went and we took a gentleman Dorothy met in the lobby who is very, very good looking but he is only an English ballroom dancer in a café when he has a job.

So we went to tea to a lady’s house called Lady Elmsworth and what she has to sell we Americans seems to be a picture of her father painted in oil paint who she said was a whistler. But I told her my own father was a whistler and used to whistle all of the time and I did not even have a picture of him but every time he used to go to Little Rock I asked him to go to the photographers but he did not go.

So then we met a lady called Lady Chizzleby that wanted us to go to her house to tea but we told her that we really did not want to buy anything. But she said that she did not have anything to sell but she wanted to borrow five pounds. So we did not go and I am really glad that Mr. Eisman did not come to London as all the English ladys would ask him to tea and he would have a whole ship load of shell flowers and dogs and anteek pictures that do nobody any good.

So last night Piggie and I and Dorothy and the dancer who is called Gerald went to the Kit Kat Club as Gerald had nothing better to do because he is out of a job. So Dorothy and I had quite a little quarrel because I told Dorothy that she was wasting quite a lot of time going with any gentleman who is out of a job but Dorothy is always getting to really like somebody and she will never learn how to act. I mean I always seem to think that when a girl really enjoys being with a gentleman, it puts her to quite a disadvantage and no real good can come of it.

Well tonight is going to be quite a night because Major Falcon is going to take Dorothy and I to a dance at a lady’s house tonight to meet the Prince of Wales. And now I must get ready to see Piggie because he and I seem to be getting to be quite good friends even if he has not sent me any flowers yet.