loafing there, you feel as though
you were in the waiting-room of the Grand Central Terminal, and with a
dining room about the size of the state of Rhode Island, and a sun
parlor that has windows all round, so as to give its occupants the
aspect, when viewed from without, of being inmates of an aquarium; and a
gorgeous tea room done in the style of one of the French Louies--Louie
the Limit, I guess. There are some notable exceptions to the rule--some
of the places have pleasing individualities of their own, but most of
them were cut off the same pattern. Likewise the bulk of their winter
patrons are cut off the same pattern.

The average Eastern tourist is a funny biped anyhow, and he is at his
funniest out in California. Living along the Eastern seaboard are a
large number of well-to-do people who harken not to the slogan of See
America First, because many of them cannot see America at any price;
they can just barely recognize its existence as a suitable place for
making money, but no place for spending it. What makes life worth living
to them is the fact that Europe is distant only a four-day run by the
four-day boat, the same being known as a four-day boat because only four
days are required for the run between Daunt's Rock and Ambrose Channel,
which is a very convenient arrangement for deep-sea divers and
long-distance swimmers desiring to get on at Daunt's Rock and get off in
Ambrose Channel, but slightly extending the journey for passengers who
are less amphibious by nature.

These people constitute one breed of Eastern tourists. There is the
other breed, who are willing to see America provided it is made over to
conform with the accepted Eastern model. Those who can afford the
expense go to Florida in the winter; but it requires at least a million
in small change to feel at home in that setting, and so a good many who
haven't quite a million to spare, head for Southern California as the
next best spot on the map. Arriving there, they endeavor to reproduce on
as exact a scale as possible the life of the ultra fashionable Florida
resorts; the result is what a burlesque manager would call a Number Two
Palm Beach company playing the Western Wheel.

Up and down the Coast these tourists traipse for months on end,
spending a week here and two weeks there, and doing the same things in
the same way at each new stopping place. You meet them, part from them,
and meet them again at the next stand, until the monotony of it