Gamblers

Monday, January 1st., Yacht Amaryllis, Monte Carlo.

Casino de Monte Carlo

We came here last Tuesday and I found that all the people I knew were confirmed bachelors and gamblers. So it has taken me some days, by various introductions, to find partners suitable to me. I met the chief one this morning on the Casino Terrace - aged 29, tres chic - and she said that she was just going to church, and wouldn't I go? And before I knew where I was she was telling me that once you had grasped the fact that the English are the descendants of the ten lost tribes the whole bible becomes perfectly clear. Also that the second coming was expected to occur in 1935, and that all the great dates in history, including this last, are to be found inscribed in a secret place beneath the Great Pyramid. Was I happy, she asked? If not, why not? She and her husband had been very happy since they found the truth etc. By this stage my interest, having waned, disappeared completely. I did not go to church!

Herbert Sullivan (right)

Bertie Sullivan is a confirmed gambler. I have joined the two private gambling halls run by the Casino, but I never play and have lost all desire to play. It gives much greater satisfaction watching other people lose. Winston Churchill was playing mightily last night. I asked him if he had won and he said he hadn't. His mother-in-law lives here and plays twice daily and, apparently, tries to cheat the whole time. The curious thing is that she looks almost exactly like his late lamented mother. I think he is a very great man but he spends fifty percent of his time being a super fool.

Chartres Biron

We have on board Chartres Biron, Chief Magistrate of Bow Street, and the destroyer of Bottomley. he is 57, a fine tennis player, a fine talker, very handsome, rather a dandy and as mean as Ephraim Tellwright. Bertie is very generous but not an organiser nor an anti-muddler. we are lying here beyond our time because he has muddled the engines, the engineer, and the electricity. Happily his housekeeper, a Belgian aged 60, runs the household part of the ship very well. She is a wonderful individuality, gambles frequently, and seldom loses. The Italian cook consistently gives us the best regular cooking I ever had.

As for Marguerite, her pen, like her tongue, runs away with her. She loses no occasion to write to me, good wishes, assurances of affection, readiness to come at once if I am ill etc. The mischief is that often what she says bears no recognisable relation to the truth whatever. My impression is that she wants to return, but I can't be sure. As things stand I can conceive of no circumstances under which I would have her back. In my experience, leopards never change their spots. And I am taking to the bachelor lifestyle, chic biblical nutcases notwithstanding.