Fine time I had with young Walpole. Those English certainly have the
drop on us in the matter of clubs. They live about in the haunts
beloved of Thackeray, and everybody else you ever heard of. Pleasant
place, the Garrick. Something like our Players, but better. Slick
collection of old portraits. Fine bust there of Will Shakespeare,
found bottled up in some old passage.

Fashionable young man, Walpole. I can't remember exactly whether or
not he had on all these things; but he's the sort that, if he had on
nothing, would look as if he had: silk topper, spats, buttonhole
bouquet. Asked me if I had yet been to Ascot. "Oh, you must go to
Ascot." Buys his cigarettes, in that English way, in bulk, not by the
box. "Stuff some in your pocket," he said. "Won't you have a whiskey
and soda?"

Difficult person to talk with, as the only English he knows is the
King's English. I was endeavouring to explain that I had left New York
rather suddenly. "I just beat it, you know," I said.

"You beat it?" said Mr. Walpole.

"Yes, I just up and skidooed."

"You skidooed?"

I saw that I should have to talk like John Milton. "Sure," I said, "I
left without much preparation." And then we spoke of some writer I do
not care for. "I don't get him," I said.