In the evenin’ we strolled acrost the street to the Ponce—that’s supposed to be even sweller yet than where we were stoppin’ at. We walked all over the place without recognizin’ nobody from our set. I finally warned the Missus that if we didn’t duck back to our room I’d probably have a heart attack from excitement; but she’d read in her Florida guide that the decorations and pitchers was worth goin’ miles to see, so we had to stand in front o’ them for a couple hours and try to keep awake. Four or five o’ them was thrillers, at that. Their names was Adventure, Discovery, Contest, and so on, but what they all should of been called was Lady Who Had Mislaid Her Clo’es.
The hotel’s named after the fella that built it. He come from Spain and they say he was huntin’ for some water that if he’d drunk it he’d feel young. I don’t see myself how you could expect to feel young on water. But, anyway, he’d heard that this here kind o’ water could be found in St. Augustine, and when he couldn’t find it he went into the hotel business and got even with the United States by chargin’ five dollars a day and up for a room.
Sunday mornin’ we went in to breakfast early and I ast the head waiter if we could set at another table where they wasn’t no convalescent and his mate. At the same time I give the said head waiter somethin’ that spoke louder than words. We was showed to a place way acrost the room from where we’d been the night before. It was a table for six, but the other four didn’t come into our life till that night at supper.
Meanw’ile we went sight-seein’. We visited Fort Marion, that’d be a great protection against the Germans, provided they fought with paper wads. We seen the city gate and the cathedral and the slave market, and then we took the boat over to Anastasia Island, that the ocean’s on the other side of it. This trip made me homesick, because the people that was along with us on the boat looked just like the ones we’d often went with to Michigan City on the Fourth o’ July. The boat landed on the bay side o’ the island and from there we was drug over to the ocean side on a horse car, the horse walkin’ to one side o’ the car instead of in front, so’s he wouldn’t get ran over.
We stuck on the beach till dinnertime and then took the chariot back to the pavilion on the bay side, where a whole family served the meal and their pigs put on a cabaret. It was the best meal I had in dear old Dixie—fresh oysters and chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy and fish and pie. And they charged two bits a plate.
“Goodness gracious!” says the Missus, when I told her the price. “This is certainly reasonable. I wonder how it happens.”
“Well,” I says, “the family was probably washed up here by the tide and don’t know they’re in Florida.”
When we got back to the hotel they was only just time to clean up and go down to supper. We hadn’t no sooner got seated when our table companions breezed in. It was a man about forty-five, that looked like he’d made his money in express and general haulin’, and he had his wife along and both their mother-in-laws. The shirt he had on was the one he’d started from home with, if he lived in Yokohama. His womenfolks wore mournin’ with a touch o’ gravy here and there.
“You order for us, Jake,” says one o’ the ladies.
So Jake grabbed the bill o’ fare and his wife took the slip and pencil and waited for the dictation.
“Let’s see,” he says. “How about oyster cocktail?”
“Yes,” says the three Mrs. Black.
“Four oyster cocktails, then,” says Jake, “and four orders o’ bluepoints.”
“The oysters is nice, too,” says I.
They all give me a cordial smile and the ice was broke.
“Everything’s good here,” says Jake.
“I bet you know,” I says.
He seemed pleased at the compliment and went on dictatin’.
“Four chicken soups with rice,” he says, “and four o’ the bluefish and four veal chops breaded and four roast chicken and four boiled potatoes—”
But it seemed his wife would rather have sweet potatoes.
“All right,” says Jake; “four boiled potatoes and four sweets. And chicken salad and some o’ that tapioca puddin’ and ice-cream and tea. Is that satisfactory?”
“Fine!” says one o’ the mother-in-laws.
“Are you goin’ to stay long?” says Mrs. Jake to my Missus.
The party addressed didn’t look very clubby, but she was too polite to pull the cut direct.
“We leave tomorrow night,” she says.
Nobody ast her where we was goin’.
“We leave for Palm Beach,” she says.
“That’s a nice place, I guess,” says one o’ the old ones. “More people goes there than comes here. It ain’t so expensive there, I guess.”
“You’re some guesser,” says the Missus and freezes up.
I ast Jake if he’d been to Florida before.
“No,” he says; “this is our first trip, but we’re makin’ up for lost time. We’re seein’ all they is to see and havin’ everything the best.”
“You’re havin’ everything, all right,” I says, “but I don’t know if it’s the best or not. How long have you been here?”
“A week tomorrow,” says he. “And we stay another week and then go to Ormond.”
“Are you standin’ the trip OK?” I ast him.
“Well,” he says, “I don’t feel quite as good as when we first come.”
“Kind o’ logy?” I says.
“Yes;
