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212
Monday, July 30, 1928

Thank God I've been honest with him.  He's so nice a person that it would have been horribly unfair to have strung him along.  This way it is perfect.  Dances and dates and good-bye.  

Then the S.S. Virginia with Rotary Club men and school teacher women.  Helen Rosenheim and Uncle Milton; "The Big Splash" (Arthur McKinley Bryant) who wrote for Milestone, wrote "Clouds of Death", was in the know with Capone, who looked like Glen Anders with a divine body, who was devoid of brains and sense of humor.  Vanderbilt's ex mistress who was keeping "The Big Splash";  Mr. Batty, who had to go to Wyoming because he'd hurt his back, leaving behind a wife and three daughters, who was terribly homesick, a little soft, charming, who was uncultured but interesting with his fund of knowledge and his youthful zest and enthusiasm for everything in life, large and small;  Uncle Gus; "the 9th ass."  Engineer who was inconsistent in body and soul;  Miss Snively, who "felt all-right but wasn't hungry, doncha know?," the Ghetto;  the [[??Schlenis]];  the perfect English drawing room butler" a - steward in the Verandah café;  Harry Leland, whose marvelously curling lashes surrounded very blue green eyes, 


213
Tuesday, July 31, 1928

and who was certainly attractive and, for the most part, elusive in his Tourist home territory.  Lou Clayton - sincere, honest, what he was, funny, good hearted.  "Not completely" 

Havana with Mr. Holm, Comradish, and the Rosenheims, which, with the exception of The National Hotel and The Prada, remains in my mind as a place full of palms and tropical trees and flowers and intense heat.  Unique were the pineapple drinks and sloppy Joe's and the cocktails at Sloppy Joe's. 

I was really thrilled by the Canal.  The power and assurance of the gating locks was so overwhelming that ones admiration for the men who conceived and executed it was unboundless.  I was, however, most surprised at the intense beauty of the place, of the little [[strikethrough]] little [[/strikethrough]] islands whose heavy green burden of tropical trees sunk them farther into the green water, of the indolent natives rowing lazily along, of the freighters which passed close to us, of the isolated dilapidated huts.  And one really felt a Tribute to the men who [[strikethrough]] sent [[/strikethrough]] went there and made the Zone habitable and sanitary.

Balboa and Panama!  A million different kinds of perfumes, panamas and cigars