Life — August 13, 1908 — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

me PE * Newport As Seen By a Foreigner Two Letters from Sir Reginald Browne Bunbury to Major Ponsonby rdish, (Letter No. IL.) Newport, August, 1908, Tur Reaptxc-Roost D*s PONSE: My first letter will pretty weil shown you that this is a stiff line of country. The wire The last twenty-four hours have been have is everywhere! y life Mrs, Golden Spooner’s! pop; a mulitude of pretty women, and a mine of rubies, diamonds and sapphires. After this the inevei (Such makes! Such Lutchered h: When the slaughter was over there was a dance at the Gran- dolets, and, more pop and more supper. I saw three chaps, dead to all worlds, in the smoking-room. After the dance Johnny insisted on taking me to a place they call The Club for another supper. I wasn’t for it a all, thinking it some dreadful restaurant, but it turned to be nothing but xaming-place. 1 felt awkward about eat- ing @ gambler’s cold chicken and sala: without playing a bit at his tables, and T lost a cool all good num- the longest of 1 dined at Cataracts of whole ble bridge. nds!) of course, the end of it all was that pony on 17, 28 and 35 hers, too! In the middle of the play two chaps came in, dressed as birds, and began punting with five-dollar counters. It seems that somebody had given a “ bird party" last night, and this a part of the debris. The rooster was a pony out and hardly able to stack his coun ters and the peacock had lost most of his feathers At half after five in the morning I saw that [ was “in the cart and felt so fed up with the place that I chuckes it and left, but, as bad luck would have it, [ met some ng from the dance who were all for having a swim. They dragged me into a four-wheeler and proceeded to * me. as they called it, for the cab (everybody here uses the greatest amount of slang, which means nothing at all, and puts a chap off most fearfully). Of course, old cock. you will guess the result. I lost and handed the driver—a prodigious black— half a dollar, or two shillings. Such Such profanity! He had the nose to ask four dollars, which is a bit over sixteen bob. At the beach there were a lot of men and a few women from she dance, and some went in for men cor match language! bY P. DORMER CHESTERPIEL a swim—and all together, mind you, not separating the sexes as we do at home. After our bath they suggested breakfast, telephoned through for some to come down and do us some followed, of tanta nd we rants cugs and a bit of coffee, course, by more pop and more lizers Une of the men had fetched some “cons "* to sing, and there we were at even in the morning, messing about on the bally rocks, eating off gold and sil- ver dishes, one of the chaps double screwed, a lot more quite bright-in-the- eyes, a rooster-man and peacock-man a chafing-dish, and six * mel- inessing over blacks singing infer One ccon, a particularly mea- al plantation odies."" acing looking baritone, came over to my rock, looked me straight in the eye, and Lellowed something about “ For the last time call me sweetheart.” Well, as a matter of fact, I had been so put off b all the pop and the paté, and one thing or another, that I lost my balance and fell off my rock into a fairish pool of water, from which I was extricated by the peacock and a lady whose name | failed to leara. A bit of a sickener— what? Such sights, my dear old pal! Two girls, hardly more than flappers, ewinging in swings; two elderly brokers playing Diabolo; I, like Poseidon, rising from the sea; the blacks singing a rip- ping thing called “I'm the Kid that Built the Pyramid" (I must get the mu- sic of this for Lady Hermione); the cooks boiling eggs on the beach; some of the women in bathing dresses, and some in evening things with ropes of pearls and chains of emeralds; and two chaps having a swimming race to the raft and back for a cool hundred pounds. The whole thing was getting a bit thick for me, and I bundled into a cab with n appalling little bounder — who “matched '* me for the fly (a sort of rum tilbury) and laughed very rudely when I lost again. Why is it, in these matching games, that [ am always and forever a sitter and a sure find? Some of the men in my house-party at the Nestors’ just as [ pulled up, and they forced me to join in a game of poker, which was, unfortu- nately, quite new to me. I lost an even cighty sterling, as, in one of my biggest coups and playing five-pound rise, I al- together forgot the bally “ joker."” Finally I undressed and got into bed, but only for an instant! Inside the arrived sheets I felt something cold and un- utterably horrible. I screamed wildly for Catchpole, who rushed in and found that some damned wag on the house- party—a woman, I suppose—had put a chocolate blanc-mange pudding into bed. If ever I discover who she is I shall pretty well tell ber what I think of such rubbish. On top of all I had gone through, it was a fearful facer for me. I sent Catchpole to the kitchen for some barley-water and the footman to the chemist’s for a powder of trional. It was now early morning, and, after a bit, I tumbled into bed again and would have dozed but for the telephone in my room, which rang as if possessed. I got up to find that a lady had telephoned through to remind me of an engagement I had made to play eighteen boles of golf with her at nine o'clock. I was in such a beastly funk that I weak-mind- edly assented, dressed and went through with the whole rotten scheme,? which ended by her taking nine sovereigns off me at golf I am off this afternoon to New York. ady- da d—4 sight shorter. I My love to Reccre: Marr-Cavendish, Two days of this is long enough. smith sce hope you are going strong. Vi and the w To Major Ponsonby Ore-Stoke-Cloddington, Invernesshire. 8’8 péBuT w ING SUCCESS ” “M188 CROE!