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red light district pointing out the various places as we went by. Then we went to the Cheerio Cafe, 18th & State, a cheap dive full of bums, truck drivers, shop girls, drunken women and riff raff, where we spent a couple of hours during which Si got acquainted with a fat mama who bit her nails. They raved about Elsie, the waitress, an overpainted, slack throated, knock kneed girl who didn't impress me very much. One fat, middle aged woman with a pretty face, sang - she was drunk and said she was a showgirl before we were born - and from her voice, I believe maybe she was a showgirl. Finally the piano player refused to play "My Wild Irish Rose" for her and she got mad, sore, sulked. From the Cheerio, we went to the Pope Hotel where the show was just plain punk; the only high spot there was the waitress, a bright, intelligent acting negro girl who seemed too good for the place. Thank heaven, the place was so terrible, the boys were glad to go home when we left and Frank dropped me off home about 1 AM.

Ted Koenig, who is a hunchback and says his back was broken when he was six, rather interested me. He is an ex-sailor from Ford's fleet as well as other Great Lakes lines, and he told some interesting stories about storms on the lakes, and life on the lake boats in general. He claimed he had been in cat houses in every town on the lakes from Buffalo to Duluth and seemed rather inclined that way. But when he got serious, he could talk very interestingly. Si told me Koenig is as slippery as a snake and can't be trusted but sometimes I think Si is a little cocked on the subject of people being no good.