title: Sun hunting : adventures and observations among the native and migratory tribes of Florida, including the stoical time-killers of Palm Beach, the gentle and gregarious tin-canners of the remote interior, and the vivacious and semi-violent peoples of Miami and its pulieus
text: m - ^v ^^ -•'^^^^^ 4 o OHO' ^ ^X.^^^'-I-Sf^". \. ./ /^^^'- '*^^^. .^^■''' 4vi^ \ o > .0 •^oV* ".^i ^■iK.^5^"'^ V •"^..♦* .-^IfA-, "■^-„.<*' V-^^ -o*^- •^^ SUN HUNTING President Harding, an oeeasional sun-hunter, slices one into tlie palmettos on one of Miami Beach's three links. SUN HUNTING Adventures and Observations among the Native and Migratory Tribes of Florida, including the Stoical Time-Killers of Palm Beach, the Gentle and Gregarious Tin-Canners of the Remote Interior, and the Vivacious and Semi-Violent Peoples of Miami and Its PurKeus By j^ Kenneth L. Roberts Author of Why Europe Leaves Home INDIANAPOLIS .THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS F3l(o n(.+ Copyright, 1922 By The Curtis Publishing Company Copyright, 1922 By The Bobbs-Merrill Company Printed in the United States of America, PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOK MANUFACTURERS BROOKLYN, N. Y. NOV 2': ... ©r.ii ('.92157 To Juan Ponce De Leon who found in 1513 That Florida wasn't all it was Cracked Up to be BUT who Liked it Well Enough TO Go Back This Book is Appreciatively Dedicated CONTENTS BOOK ONE The Time-Killers Chapter Page I Of time-killing in the French and English manner — and of ancient and modern Ameri- can time-slaughterers 3 II Of the passage from winter to summer in one day's time — and of the habitat of some rare specimens 8 III Of the peculiar differences between two sides of a lake — of money odors — and of the questers after Charley Schwab .... 13 IV Of the apotheosis of the bicycle — of the uses of wheel-chairs — and of the mental activities of chair-chauffeurs 18 V Of the telegram-expecters — of the date-guessers — and of the statistic weevils 22 VI Of the changing of clothes — of the way they wear 'em — and of the females of the dress- ferret species 26 VII Of the fascinations of the beach — of the sand- hounds from Odessa and elsewhere — and of prudes and stylish stouts 30 VIII Of the Three Day Suckers — of true smartness — and of the Buckwheats and the dead line 36 IX Of the smartest thing in Palm Beach — of large amounts of money — and of the Old Guard 41 X Of those who wish to crash into society — and of those who furnish the palpitating society items 47 CONTENTS— Continued Chapter Page XI Of the Alibi Window— of the trick flasks and canes — of drinkers frail and fat — and of one conception of simplicity 50 XII Of nuts in the Coconut Grove — of Bradley's — of the relaxation and amusement of the Beach Club- fellows — ^and of gambling in general 55 XIII Of the divergences between Bradley's and Monte Carlo — of the idiosyncrasies of the little white pill — of the oddities of fat play- ers — of time-killing pastimes — and of the wis- dom of Dionysius the Elder 62 BOOK TWO The Tin-Canners I Of January in the North — of the winter pas- times of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Walnut — and of a penetrating chill 71 II Of a pronounced change of scene — of a daring game of chance amid tropical scents — ^and of the gloating of Charles Walnut and Her- man Blister 75 III Of migrants and migrations — of the true sun- hunter and his desires — and of his uniform, and his fluent assortment of equipment. 79 IV Of the Tin-Can Tourists of the World— of im- migrants and other unsupervised and unso- licited visitors, national and local — of cheap skates — and of the reason why tin-canners do not abound in Palm Beach 87 V Of portable bungalows — of the rheumatic dairy- man — of the little ole truck — of simple pleasures and low expenditures .... 96 VI Of Mrs. Jarley, the original tin-canner — of the two schools of tin-can thought — of the hard- boiled bachelor with the condensed outfit — and of folk who ride on the backs of their necks 103 CONTENTS— Co/j^mK^J Chapter Page VII Of the migrant from Marion — of his fears — of land at a nickel an acre — of sand fleas and sand spurs — of loneliness and honeymooners — and of the doctor who was run to death no VIII Of the marvelous sitting ability of the tin- canners — of the parks in which they sit — of the horseshoe bugs and the checker and domino beetles — of the delicate movements of a celebrated horseshoe tosser — ^and of the International Horseshoe Qub .... 115 BOOK THREE Tropical Growth I Of the enthusiasm of all growing things in Florida — of paw-paws and prospectuses and perfect thirty-fours— of fiends in human shape — and of the watchfulness of the na- tives for insults 125 II Of hotel rates — of mosquitoes — and of the outcry against the Shipping Board for daring to mention Europe » 130 III Of palm trees— of varieties of fish — and of fruit and liars and Baron Munchausen. Collins 165 X Of the arrival of Carl Fisher in Miami — of Fisher's feverish imagination and violent dreams — of the despair of Fisher's friends — and of the evolution of a jungle . . . 172 XI Of expensive expenses and heated ice-rinks — of lily on lily that o'erlace the sea — and of the boneheadedness of most of the human race 178 XII Of one-piece and two-fifths-piece bathing suits — of the Honorable William Jennings Bryan and his activities — of bootleggers — of the sanctimonious Haig and Haig boys — and of rum in general 183 XIII Of Florida fishing — of the tigerish barracuda and the surprised-looking dolphin — of the unconventional habits of the whip-ray and the varying estimates of Cap'n Charley Thompson — and of the conservative raving of the Miami prospectuses 191 BOOK ONE THE TIME-KILLERS SUN HUNTING CHAPTER I OF TIME-KILLING IN THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH MANNER AND OF ANCIENT AND MODERN AMERICAN TIME-SLAUGHTERERS People who have any time to kill are usually filled with a deep and intense desire to kill it in some spot far removed from their usual haunts. This desire is not so much due to their wish to avoid making a mess around the house as it is to the peculiar mental obses- sion known to the French as "'homesickness :''or elsewhere." French society has been afflicted for years with a passionate desire to be somewhere that it isn't. A Parisian with time to kill aims to move up to the clear cold air of the mountains where he can kill 3 4 SUN HUNTING lots of it. When he gets to the mountains, it suddenly occurs to him that possibly he might find a little more time to kill at the seashore, where the eye may roam at will across the boundless and unobstructed waves. So he moves to the seashore and at once begins to suspect that in Paris one can find more weapons with which to cause time to die a lingering and horrible death. So he moves back to Paris, where he once more hunts restlessly for other means to kill time. He has the homesickness for else- where. The English, too, have it to a marked degree. All Englishmen who have incomes larger than two hundred guineas a year own tea baskets with which they go off to dis- tant heaths or popular woods on bank holi- days and week-ends for the purpose of killing time and burying it with the appro- priate funeral exercises. They are all the time running up to the moors for a bit of rough shooting, or over to Switzerland for THE TIME-KILLERS 5 a bit of sheeing, or off to a country-house for a bit of punting or Scotch-drinking, or down to Brighton for a week-end. An Eng- lish week-end is sadly misnamed, inasmuch as it usually consists of Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, with a bit of Thurs- day and Tuesday thrown in for good measure. Of late years, the American people have been growing increasingly proficient at time- killing. Forty years ago, the average American, confronted with a little extra time, didn't know what to do with it. Us- ually he took it into the front parlor and sat around on haircloth furniture with it, and became so sick of it that he never wanted to see its face again. If he felt within him the primitive urge to take it somewhere and kill It, he hesitated to do so because the roads were bad, automobiles hadn't been invented, and the South was only regarded as the place where the Civil War started. Distances were great. Few people cared to 6 SUN HUNTING travel, because it was generally believed that a person who absented himself from busi- ness more than one working day out of every five years was a loose, dangerous and depraved character. One of the most excit- ing things to do forty years ago was to put on a striped flannel coat and play croquet on the front lawn. To-day, however, America has caught the germs of ''homesickness for elsewhere" from the French and English. Florida has been reclaimed from the swamps and the Indians, the small automobile has been put within the means of stevedores, cooks, second-story workers and moderately suc- cessful story-writers, and golf trousers may be worn in western towns without causing the wearer to be shot. A road is cursed fluently by an automobilist if it is bad enough to get his wheel-spokes muddy. The business man who can't knock off work for two or three months a year is regarded pityingly as being either a back number. THE TIME-KILLERS 7 feeble-minded, or a poor man. All of these things being so, Americans with time to kill can take it farther from home and kill it with more thoroughness than any other people on earth. They go into their time-killing with more energy than do Europeans. The European is usually content to do his time- killing within three hundred miles of home. The American is never content unless he can travel from fifteen hundred to three thou- sand miles, and wind up with an orgy of time-killing that would make a professional executioner look by comparison like the president of a Dorcas society. CHAPTER II OF THE PASSAGE FROM WINTER TO SUMMER IN ONE day's TIME — AND OF THE HABITAT OF SOME RARE SPECIMENS It is in Florida that the American time- killer may be found in all his glory ; and the largest, most perfect and most brilliantly colored specimens are to be found at Palm Beach. It is at Palm Beach that one finds the very rare variety measuring twenty minutes from tip to tip. One can best understand why it is that winter-bound northerners select Florida as the scene of their time-killing by following in their footsteps and boarding a Florida- bound night train in a northern city during a heavy blizzard. Early the next morning, when one disen- tangles the bedclothes from his neck and elevates the trick shade of the sleeping-car window after the usual severe struggle, one finds that the snow has nearly disappeared. 8 THE TIME-KILLERS 9 The eye is wearied by the flat plains of North Carolina, relieved only by negro shan- ties and scrub pines. By afternoon North Carolina has merged into South Carolina. The flatness continues with unbounded en- thusiasm; but there is no snow and the air is milder. The pines are marked with pecu- liar herring-bone gashes, whence flows turpentine, the painter's delight. Piney odors, vaguely reminiscent of tar soap, sheep dip and cold-remedies, float through the half-opened windows. Later that eve- ning, as one returns to the dining-car to recover the hat which one has forgotten in the excitement of tipping the waiter, one hears frequent shrill frog-choruses from the pools beside the tracks. By midnight one is ringing for the porter to tear himself from his slumbers among the shoes in the smoking compartment and start the electric fans. One's rest is troubled by the heat and the increasing shrillness of the frog-choruses. On the second morning the rising sun dis- lo SUN HUNTING closes a limitless expanse of flatness, dotted with occasional palm trees and covered with a scrubby growth of near-palms or palmettos. The sun is hot and red. A black ribbon of asphalt road parallels the railroad; and at intervals along it appear flocks of flivvers nesting drowsily among the palms and the tin-can tourists. There is plenty of glaring white sand, and plenty of stagnant water. The air is full of swal- lows, and an occasional pelican flops lan- guidly alongside the train, gazing pessimis- tically at the passengers. The traveler perspires lightly and marvels at the thought that it was only night before last when he slipped on a piece of ice and got half a peck of snow down the back of his neck. He remembers that it is a great and glorious country — a fact which his con- templation of the antics of Congress had caused him to forget. Occasionally the train flashes past little towns sitting hotly in the sun and sand THE TIME-KILLERS ii among a few orange and grapefruit trees. This is Florida, and the land looks as though it were worth about a nickel an acre — just as it has always looked until some one devel- ops it and begins to sell off corner lots at a paltry five thousand dollars apiece. Around breakfast time — a mere thirty- six hours since the train emerged from its northern blizzard and snow-drifts — the train crosses a shimmering strip of blue water and comes to rest beside a hotel that seems, at first glance, to be at least ten miles long. It stretches off so far into the dis- tance that people up at the other end appear to be hull-down. In reality it is only about half a mile long, and only about five hun- dred times larger than the Mousam House at Kennebunk, Maine. On the station platform are women in satin skirts, gauzy waists and diamond bracelets. Young men in white trousers dash up and down the platform on bicycles. The air is soft and balmy. Palm trees 12 SUN HUNTING stretch off into the distance in every direc- tion. Wheel-chairs, propelled by dignified- looking negroes who sit on bicycle-seats di- rectly behind the chairs and pedal vigorously, move hither and yon in a stately manner. Through the palm trees one catches glimpses of white yachts riding at anchor on blue water. A wheel-chair stops at the edge of the station platform. In it are seated a digni- fied gentleman in white flannels, and a gra- cious lady in a satin skirt and a sweater covered with neat lightning effects in red, green and orange zigzags. One wonders whether this can be J. Pierpont Morgan or Charley Schwab. Then one hears the gra- cious lady whisper excitedly to the dignified gentleman: "Do you suppose that's Char- ley Schwab or J. Pierpont Morgan over there?" and hears the dignified gentleman reply in a hoarse undertone: "Shut up, or they'll think we're boobs !" This is Palm Beach, the very center of the winter time-killing industry. CHAPTER III OF THE PECULIAR DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TWO SIDES OF A LAKE OF MONEY ODORS — AND OF THE QUESTERS AFTER CHARLEY SCHWAB Palm Beach is a long narrow strip of land which is separated from the mainland by a long narrow body of water known as Lake Worth, and by a sudden increase in living expenses. On the mainland side of Lake Worth is the rising young city of West Palm Beach, where one is not afraid — as he usually is in Palm Beach — to offer a store- keeper or a newsboy a nickel lest he should regard it as some strange, unknown foreign coin. West Palm Beach is full of ordinary people who are unacquainted with wheel- chairs and think nothing of walking two or three blocks, or even as much as half a mile if the necessity arises. They frequently get along for days at a time without spending 13 14 SUN HUNTING more than two dollars and eighty-five cents a day. West Palm Beach has the same sort of climate that Palm Beach has, but the air of the place is somehow different. At Palm Beach one has the feeling that he is breath- ing the very same air that the world's greatest bankers and society people are breathing, whereas over in West Palm Beach one doesn't know or care who has been breathing the air. That is why so many people find the Palm Beach climate very invigorating, but always feel that the climate of West Palm Beach leaves them a little weak and tired. Palm Beach, then, is a long narrow strip of land with the ocean on one side and Lake Worth on the other. The largest hotel, which has room for thirteen hundred paying guests at any one time, fronts on Lake Worth; while the next largest hotel is directly across the narrow strip of land, fronting on the ocean. In between are golf THE TIME-KILLERS 15 links, and roadways edged with palms and avenues of towering, feathery, bluish-green Australian pines and simple little cottages that couldn't have cost a cent more than forty or fifty thousand dollars, and modest little shacks that might have set their owners back half a million or so, and club-houses and bathing pavilions and more palms and broad white roadways and men in white flan- nels and women in diamonds and perfumery and clinging gowns — and more palms. Over everything there is an odor of money. Every breeze that blows is freighted with its rich, fragrant musky smell; and every person that one encounters on the street or in a hotel lobby seems to be about to spend a lot of it or to have just finished spending a lot of it. Some people seem to like the odor and some don't seem to care so much for it. Some, in fact, seem from their expressions to think that this money-odor has a great deal in common with smoldering rubber or asafetida. i6 SUN HUNTING The impression that Palm Beach is bound to make on any newcomer is one of general discomfort. Everybody seems to be staring critically and curiously at everybody else — due, of course, to the fact that almost every- body hopes or suspects that everybody else may prove to be Charley Schwab or Percy Rockefeller or E. T. Stotesbury or one of those prominent society people who part their names on the side. People who enter and leave the hotel din- ing-room don't seem to know what to do with their hands. They pretend to an em- barrassing ease of manner, which leaves everybody acutely conscious that they are very uneasy. The people at the tables can't keep their eyes off the people at other tables. The hotel lobbies are congested before lunch and after dinner with persons who have no interest in any scenery except that which other people are wearing. Although the beach at Palm Beach is many miles in length, all the bathers, near bathers and bather- THE TIME-KILLERS 17 watchers cram themselves each noon into a few square yards of beach and watch one another Hke a gathering of lynxes. People dawdle along the palm-fringed avenues and stare at one another blankly and questioningly. People sit self-consciously in wheel-chairs and look searchingly at peo- ple in other wheel-chairs. Bicyclists wheel languidly along the white roads and gaze intently at every one. "Are you Charley Schwab?" each eye seems to ask mutely. "Are you one of the Stotesburys? Are you anybody?'' CHAPTER IV OF THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE BICYCLE OF THE USES OF WHEEL-CHAIRS — AND OF THE MENTAL ACTIVITIES OF CHAIR-CHAUFFEURS Palm Beach is the heaven of the bicycle. In other parts of the world it has sunk in popular esteem until it is little else than a conveyer of telegraph boys and an instru- ment for the removal of skin from children's knees. But in Palm Beach it shares with the wheel-chair the honor of being the chariot of wealth and beauty. Flocks of bicycles are parked beside every hotel entrance. Broad and flawless side- walks are reserved for bicycles and wheel- chairs. The pedestrian who sets foot on them does so at his own risk, and is more than apt, if he does so, to have his coat driven several inches into his back by the front wheel of a bicycle. i8 THE TIME-KILLERS 19 There is no bicycle costume. Beautiful lady bicyclists wear anything: rakish sport clothes, fragile afternoon gowns, flowing costumes with long capes, and more extreme evening gowns. Large numbers of girls persist in bicycling while wearing tight skirts, so that the general effect is some- what similar to that of a pony ballet made up as messenger boys. On side-streets, one frequently sees the almost forgotten spectacle of a frail debu- tante learning to ride. On the dance floor she would float along as lightly as a tuft of thistledown. On a bicycle she wabbles heav- ily and helplessly from side to side, collaps- ing at intervals against her instructor with all the crushing weight of a California Red- wood. The wheel-chair is the favorite Palm Beach method of locomotion, and it is the only form of exercise ever taken by many Palm Beach visitors. Many old inhabitants claim that wheel-chair riding is excellent for 20 SUN HUNTING the liver, and devote at least two hours to it every afternoon. The negro chair chauf- feurs drive the chair along by vigorous ped- aling, and the alternate leg stroke gives the chair a gentle side to side motion which acts as a mild massage on the occupant. Two hours of such exercise is considered to be about enough by the most conservative Palm Beachers. It is their belief that the persons who ride for three hours run a great risk of over-exerting themselves. The chair-chauffeurs, in addition to pos- sessing tireless legs, are usually supplied with a vast fund of knowledge. This is most desirable ; for many visitors speak to no one except the hotel clerks, the news-stand girls, the waiters and their wheel-chair chauffeurs during their entire stay. It frequently hap- pens that their chair chauffeurs are their only guides, philosophers and friends ; so the chauffeurs find it very valuable to be fairly familiar with all Palm Beach estates, to have a comprehensive grasp of the flora and (J V- ^ 6 -^ o a 03 'si a > Bradley's, the Monte Carlo of America. I :^ The Casino at Palm Beach, where the photographers catch the society- favorites reading from left to right. THE TIME-KILLERS 21 fauna of the south, and to be conversant with all financial and social matters apper- taining to the old-timer. They have also found that a frank exposition of their own philosophical meditations on men and things will sometimes arouse the interest and stimu- late the generosity of their charges. "What sort of ducks are those, George?" usually brings the intelligent answer: "Those ain't no sort, suh. Those is just ducks." A query as to whether a wheel-chair is harder to push with one or two people in it brought the reply that there "wasn't no difference." But to push an empty one is the hardest, •Yes, suh! Must be because no money is being made. lYes, suh ! CHAPTER V OF THE TELEGRAM -EX PECTERS — OF THE DATE- GUESSERS — ^AND OF THE STATISTIC-WEEVILS There are many lonely men and women at Palm Beach who almost cry with grati- tude when somebody speaks to them. They are like many Congressmen, who are big people at home, but of less account in Wash- ington than a head porter. Out of all the people who flock to Palm Beach to spend large amounts of money and bask in the soothing rays that emanate from the socially prominent, ninety per cent, might be com- pared to very small potatoes in a two hun- Hred-acre lot. Even the majority of the peo- ple whose names are names to conjure with in Palm Beach society can't be found in the pages of Who's Who. . The majority of men who pay the bills af the big hotels are forced to struggle hard to kill time when they have finished their golf- 22 THE TIME-KILLERS 23 playing for the day. Enormous numbers of them seem to spend most of their spare time sitting dolefully around hotel lobbies and expecting telegrams that never come. If you fall into conversation with any man in any Palm Beach hotel lobby, he invariably explains his inactivity by saying that he is expecting a telegram. Next to expecting telegrams, the most popular Palm Beach time-killer seems to consist of wondering what day of the week it is. Sneak up behind any two important- looking men who seem to be discussing af- fairs of moment, and the chances are ten to one that you will hear the following weighty conversation : "Is to-day Tuesday or Wednesday? I sort of lose track down here." "To-day? Why to-day's Wednesday. No; hold on! It's Thursday, isn't it?" "No, I don't think so. I think it's either Tuesday or Wednesday. Still, I 'don't know : it might be Thursday." 24 SUN HUNTING "No, I don't believe it's Thursday. I was expecting a telegram on Tuesday, and it would have had to come before Thursday. I guess it's Wednesday." "Yes, I guess it is. I thought for a while It was Tuesday." "Oh, I don't believe it's Tuesday." "No, I guess it's Wednesday, all right. That telegram ought to be here by now. How long are you staying here?" "I don't know. I'm expecting a telegram and I can't tell till it gets here." Having reached a comparatively ripe inti- macy by this time, it is almost inevitable that one of them should advance one of the thou- sand statistical questions that are so fre- quently encountered at Palm Beach, such as "Did you ever stop to think how many nails it took to build this hotel?" A few seconds later both of them have produced envelopes and are figuring busily. Men who have traveled thousands of miles for the purpose of killing time at Palm THE TIME-KILLERS 25 Beach will frequently argue for two or three hours, and figure all over the backs of eight or ten envelopes and a couple of golf scores in an attempt to decide whether or not the value of all the diamond bracelets in Palm Beach would be sufficient to secure eco- nomic control of Russia. Newcomers to Palm Beach, knowing that America's great- est financiers flock there during the season, frequently make the mistake of thinking that two men knitting their brows over a lot of figures are probably two great money- kings working up a scheme to corner the na- tion's hop crop. In reality they are two ordinary citizens killing a little time by choking it to death with useless statistics. CHAPTER VI OF THE CHANGING OF CLOTHES — OF THE WAY THEY WEAR 'em AND OF THE FEMALES OF THE DRESS-FERRET SPECIES Compared with the good old days when dresses hooked up the back in such an intricate fashion that one needed blueprints, diagrams and charts in order to hook up a dress properly, there is practically no dress- changing at Palm Beach nowadays. In the old days the womenfolk spent at least forty per cent, of their waking hours changing their clothes. They changed their clothes whenever the wind changed. They changed their clothes every time a train came in. They couldn't eat or go out in a wheel-chair or put on a string of beads or take a drink without changing their clothes. Their menfolk were kept constantly busy hooking them up the back. 26 THE TIME-KILLERS 27 To-day things are different. Dresses no longer hook up the back with their erstwhile whole-heartedness. Careful and competent observers state that many present-day dresses are safely attached to the human frame by as few as three hooks, all of which can be reached without dislocating an arm or displacing any vertebrae, and that an equal number of dresses are merely slid on over the head and worn just as they fall, without any further formality. A great many women at Palm Beach wear only two costumes each day — one for morning and afternoon that shows almost everything be- low the hips and one for evening that shows almost everything above the waist. Not so many years ago a woman who wore only two dresses in one day at Palm Beach would have been regarded as mentally un- balanced or disgustingly pauperized. The real snappy dressers, however, get in and out of three costumes a day; while it is not at all unusual to find prominent society 28 SUN HUNTING camp-followers staggering in and out of as many as five and six daily costumes. How they ever do it will ever remain a mystery to us simple writers and oatmeal-manufactur- ers and mattress-makers from the buck- wheat belt. Every morning directly after breakfast, the hotel lobbies fill up with women who want to talk about dress. The Palm Beach dailies and weeklies cater to their pitiable weakness by specializing on thrilling infor- mation of this nature. So far as the female contingent at Palm Beach is concerned, an economic conference in Europe or a. presiden- tial utterance on the Bonus hasn't a chance with such news as what Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney wore at the Beach Club last night. Outside the warm sun may be beating down upon golden sands and an azure sea, the wind rustling softly through the palms and the bland air thrilling to the melodious murmur of the wheel-chair boys as they point out the Stotesbury cottage with caus- THE TIME-KILLERS 29 tic comments on the height of the Stotesbury wall. Yet the dress-ferrets sit on with bated breaths in the cool gloom of the hotel lobbies while the papers inform their en- thralled readers that: "Very smart was the slate colored strictly tailored suit worn by Mrs. Aurelius Vander- souse, Jr., at a recent Poinciana luncheon. Her hat was of a tone of straw perfectly harmonizing with the suit and bore only a flat bow of tomato-wire for trimming. The Honorable Mrs. D. Dryver Flubyer's suit was fashioned of an imported bed-ticking fabric guiltless of any embellishment Her chapeau was fashioned of the same fabric. Mrs. J. Eaton Swank wore a clinging gown of f romage-de-brie crepe in a light heliotrope shade, fashioned in a one-piece style, with flowing sleeves and uneven hem, whose folds clung gracefully to the tall slender wearer." That's the stuff to give the Palm Beach Battalion of Dress. Like Bosco, they eat it alive. They are veritable cormorants for it. CHAPTER VII OF THE FASCINATIONS OF THE BEACH — OF THE SAND-HOUNDS FROM ODESSA AND ELSEWHERE —AND OF PRUDES AND STYLISH STOUTS At half past eleven every morning, stimu- lated by the early morning talk of dress, all the feminine population of Palm Beach, ac- companied by all obtainable male escorts, set out from their hotels and homes in wheel- chairs for their daily pilgrimage to the beach. The beach is not prized by Palm Beach visitors because of its bathing facilities, but because of the perfect spirit of camaraderie and democracy which reigns there. A Philadelphia Biddle is just as apt as not to come along and accidentally rub damp sand on a South Bend Smith. Anything may happen. A Yanderbilt may ask you what time it is. 30 THE TIME-KILLERS 31 There is no distinction on the beach itself between the people who emigrated from Montana to Fifth Avenue back in '01 and the people who emigrated from Odessa to Houston Street back in '91. Both of them have the same funny knobs on their knees; and there are lots of them — especially of the Odessa set. The beach is the only place in Palm Beach where everybody has an equal chance; and there everybody uses the same ocean and sits around in the same sand in almost hopeless confusion. Things are so congested that if one leans back carelessly and braces himself by sticking his hand down in the sand, the chances are excellent that a couple of ladies from Kansas City or Boston will come staggering along with their eyes fixed raptly on Mrs. B. Gurney Munn or Mrs. Jerome Bonaparte and sheer off two or three of one's fingers with their French heels. The only portion of the beach which any- body considers worth using is the portion 3^ SUN HUNTING Hirectly in front of the casino, which is a large, gorgeous, white plaster bath-house with an outdoor swimming pool and polite attendants who are always appearing at inopportune moments and helping patrons to do things which they could do much better alone — such, for example, as removing a towel from a hook or lifting a, brush and comb from a shelf. Many people garbed in elaborate dresses stand on the terrace in front of the casino and stare down at the people on the beach, while the people on the beach stare up at them. On chairs on the beach there are many other elaborately gowned women who examine every one closely and are closely examined by every one. Down in front of the entire mob stand large numbers of professional photogra- phers who keep a careful lookout for exciting costumes and prominent faces, and con- stantly snap little groups of laughing people who subsequently appear in leading Sunday THE TIME-KILLERS 33 papers or monthly magazines over legends like: "Far from Northern Snows: a happy society group on the Palm Beach sands: from left to right, J. Edge Smush, Mrs. B. Goodwin Eezy, the Honorable Mrs. Claribel Custard, I. Winken Ogle, Miss Patricia Swaddle. Behind the feet at the right, Perry Peevish, Jr." Every little while the photographers find some one who is prominent and pretty with- out being too much overweight and over- dressed ; and when they do, they coax her out to an unoccupied section of beach and arrange her in a position of unstudied ease and graceful carelessness, and shoot half a dozen pictures of her admiring the distant horizon with a gay, unaffected, girlish laugh. Everything on the beach is so simple an'd natural and wholesome that one can't help but like it. Then, too, one never gets that offensive, salty, seaweedy odor of ocean that one is apt to get on the New England 34 SUN HUNTING coast, owing to the ocean odors being com- pletely overwhelmed by the rare and power- ful French perfumes that are worn by many elements of Palm Beach society. If one closed his eyes, he might think that he was at a perfumery show and that somebody had kicked over all the bottles. Palm Beach is not exactly what one would call a Prude's Paradise, but a prude can feel ' more at ease on the beach at Palm Beach than at any other resort in Florida. This is due to the fact that women are not allowed to appear on the beach with any portion of the leg uncovered. A policeman is stationed on the beach to see that this rule is enforced, and there is a great rejoicing among all the local prudes, who — like all prudes through- out the world — see evil where there is none, and pass blindly by the evils that every one except themselves can see. This rule has brought about one great benefit in that it has prevented large num- bers of ill-advised and otherwise charming THE TIME-KILLERS 35 stylish stouts from rolling down their bath- ing stockings and exposing too much knee. Any rule that does this is a good rule — and it is generally agreed that there are more stylish stouts at Palm Beach than at any other resort on earth. CHAPTER VIII OF THE THREE DAY SUCKERS OF TRUE SMARTNESS— AND OF THE BUCKWHEATS AND THE DEAD-LINE When the bathing hour has passed into history, the merry bathers and clothes-wear- ers sally forth in search of lunch. The ordi- nary run of Palm Beach visitors eat their lunch at their hotels. This act almost auto- matically stamps them as Buckwheats, or Three Day Suckers, or people who aren't Smart. A Buckwheat is a coarse, rude, bar- baric person who is addicted to the secret and loathsome vices of eating buckwheat cakes for breakfast and not spending money recklessly. A Three Day Sucker is a person who only stays a few days at Palm Beach. As a time- killer he is not regarded with any respect. He travels so far to kill time that he hasn't 36 THE TIME-KILLERS 37 any time left to kill when he gets there. This is not regarded as smart. Any one who stays less than two weeks is not viewed witK favor by people who stay a month or more, and who know how important smartness is. If one wishes to have the respect of the; cigar-counter clerks and the mail clerks and the head w^aiters and other Palm Beach people who — as the ultra-refined advertise- ments say — ^matter, one must above all things be smart. You might as well be dead at Palm Beach as not be smart. Certain things are smart and certain things are not smart. It is smart, for example, for a man to go without a hat. It is smart to ride a bicycle. Any article of feminine wearing apparel that is essentially useless is smart. It is smart to speak of a thing as smart. It is not at all smart to tell a Palm Beacher that you would gladly dis- embowel him when you hear him use the word "smart" for the fiftieth time. None of the big Palm Beach hotels rents 38 SUN HUNTING rooms without meals. One must pay for his meals as well. Two people at most of the big hotels pay a minimum rate of about thirty- five dollars a day for the two — which is about the amount from which the same people would have to separate themselves at any of the big New York or Chicago or Bos- ton or Washington hotels by the time they had finished paying for their food. But if one wishes to be smart at Palm Beach, one mustn't lunch or dine at the hotel where one's meals are included on his bill. It is very buckwheat to do such a thing: very uncouth: very hick and very rough-neck: not, in a word, smart. That is why the de- sirable Palm Beach habitues, at the height of the season, find it difficult to spend less than a hundred dollars apiece per day. One can't indulge in games of chance or keep many wheel-chairs on that amount; but if one is reasonably careful and content to be only moderately smart, one can get along fairly well for a hundred dollars a day. THE TIME-KILLERS 39 The truly smart person strives always to pay for two meals where one would nor- mally be paid for. He strives to pay for one that he eats and for one that nobody eats. If one is living at the Poinciana, one should make an effort to lunch or dine at the Break- ers or at the Country Club or at the Beach Club or at the Everglades Club, or one of the cottages. It is a fascinating system, and is based on the familiar society theory that the more useless a thing is, the smarter it is. One of the smartest — in a society sense — of all the persons that come to Palm Beach is a man who never eats at the hotel where he lives, and who keeps a flock of twelve wheel-chairs always in attendance on him. Day and night his twelve wheel-chairs are waiting for him and his friends. They are used about an hour a day — but it is very smart to keep them waiting: frightfully smart. Useless and therefore smart. The head waiters in the restaurants be- 40 SUN HUNTING come very proficient at distinguishing those who are smart from those who are not smart. In the dining-room of the largest hotel there is a cross-strip of green carpet which is known as the dead-line. The people who sit between the entrance and the dead- line have been carefully looked over by the head waiter and put in the smart class. But the people who are put on the kitchen side of the dead-line are dubs and Buckwheats in the judgment of the head waiter. Once people are put below the dead-line, they rarely have a chance to come up for air, but are doomed to stay down among the other Buckwheats for the remainder of their visit. CHAPTER IX OF THE SMARTEST THING IN PALM BEACH OF LARGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY AND OF THE OLD GUARD The smartest thing at Palm Beach is the Everglades Club. The Everglades Club is so smart that it almost gives itself a pain. It has only a few over four hundred mem- bers, but these four hundred include names that make a society editor's scalp tingle, and control so much money and jewels that the mere mention of them is enough to make any normal burglar tremble all over. The Everglades Club building was started in the summer of 1918 by Paris Singer, who is a wealthy society man, as a hospital for convalescent officers. The war was over, however, before the building was ever used as a hospital ; and it immediately occurred to the smartest of the Palm Beach colony that 41 42 SUN HUNTING the building was exactly the thing to use for a smart club where really smart people could go off by themselves and be too exclusive for words. The proposition was put up to Paris Singer, who saw the force of it ; and that's how the Everglades Club started. The ini- tiation fee and yearly dues might be ex- pected to be about as large as the national debt, but in reality they amount to some- thing like one hundred dollars initiation fee and fifty dollars yearly dues. The club has built a very smart and attractive apartment- house within a stone's throw of the parent building; and in it club members can rent small but smart apartments for a mere twenty-five hundred dollars a season — and there are several Maine summer resorts where one pays as much and gets much less for his money. The club has its own golf links and tennis courts; and it has a restaurant whose chef could easily enter a cheffing contest with the leading Parisian chefs with an excellent THE TIME-KILLERS 43 chance to win the diamond-studded skillet, or the seventeen- jeweled egg-beater. It is my fixed belief that if old M'sieu Mar- guery, who invented Filet of Sole Marguery, could have been led into the dining-room of the Everglades Club and placed where he could look out through the palms to the pla- cid waters of Lake Worth, and handed a platter of Pompano Meuniere — it is my fixed belief, I say, that old M'sieu Marguery would have put his head down in his hands and cried like a child to think that he could have doubled his fortune if he could have started serving Pompano that way thirty years ago. The interior fixtures of the Everglades Club are of the proper sort to go with such food. The walls are hung with sixteenth' century tapestries, and the dining-room is wainscoted with oak from the interior of a; Spanish monastery. There was some talk at one time of cover- ing the wall of one room with silver plates 44 SUN HUNTING made by flattening the silver cocktail shakers of the club members. This was never done, however; and it is probable that the mem- bers found other uses for their shakers. It would be idle to attempt to estimate with any accuracy the amount of money represented by members of the Everglades Club. If they were pushed, they could easily dig up one billion dollars among them. While we are speaking in billions instead of in mere beggarly millions, it might be appropriate to mention that the most astute Palm Beach estimaters figure that the thir- teen hundred guests who fill the Royal Poinciana Hotel at the height of the season, if placed in one room and carefully assayed, would yield at least two billion dollars. The Country Club is another smart place iat which to lunch or dine. There is no restaurant in Europe to my knowledge that is able to produce a better dinner than the Palm Beach Country Club, especially if one leaves it, as the saying goes, to Frangois. THE TIME-KILLERS 45 FratiQoIs is the head waiter ; and he works in conjunction with a chef named Marius, who inherited most of his recipes from a gifted relative in the south of France, and who spends a large part of his time when not cooking in fearing that somebody will solve the recipes. The chief object of the Coun- try Club IS to provide a golfing retreat from the Buckwheats and the Three Day Suck- ers, who usually break for the hotel golf links immediately on arrival. Consequently the links which are open to the Buckwheats are apt to become so congested that if one doesn't stick rigidly in his place in the golf procession, he is more than apt to get a couple of golf balls in the side of the head! and then have to stand aside for two hours while a long parade of golfers and near- golfers hacks its way past him. So the smart golfers go to the Country Club. It is there that one finds the Old Guard of Palm Beach. 