Tampa, Fla.
Wed., March 31, 1926
The other day Bill and I were walking down a residential street in Tampa when I heard a voice say, “Well, if that doesn’t look like Lois Burnham,” and there on a porch, sat Hortense Lopez, a schoolmate of mine. Mrs. Lopez invited us in for lunch, after which Tense, now Mrs. Bird, with her two cunning little girls, drove us in her Buick over to Davis Island, the foundation for which was pumped from the bottom of the bay. The buildings there are a fright, spanishly ugly and blatantly new.
Yesterday Tense again took us for a ride, this time across the Gandy Bridge, to St. Petersburg, returning the long way round, forty-five miles--and it was only nineteen across the bridge. Today we toured through her father’s cigar factory. An old-fashioned Spanish gentleman, Mr. Lopez would have rather failed than use domestic tobacco; and all the best brands are hand worked.
Bill has spent much time here writing down his theories in letters to Frank. The opening paragraph of one, from which I quote, explains the motive behind his work:
“This trip has given me the time and material to indulge in what is to me the greatest pastime in the world--the construction of theories about things. Nothing seems to give me as great joy as evolving from a set of facts, some kind of theory. . . and then seeing the theory justified. I suppose that is just. . . satisfying my personal vanity--but whatever you may call such a state of mind, I certainly do enjoy entertaining it.”