I am elected to eat at the “second table.” Our bunch has luncheon at twelve-thirty and dinner at seven. The first table crowd’s hours are eleven and five-thirty. Breakfast is a free-for-all and we sit where we choose. My trough mates at the meals are two Americans, a Brazilian, and four Frenchmen. Ours is a stag table, which unfortunate circumstance is due to the paucity of women, or, as they are sometimes called, members of the fair sex. The Brazilian speaks nine or ten languages, but seems to prefer French. The two Americans are always engaged in sotto voce dialogue, and the four Frenchmen race with the Brazilian for the conversational speed championship of the high seas. This leaves me free to devote all my time to the proper mastication of food.
Thursday, August 9. Completely at Sea.
A gentleman on board is supplied with one of these newfangled one hundred dollar safety suits. The wearer is supposed to be able to float indefinitely. It is also a sort of thermos bottle, keeping one warm in cold water and cool in hot. I do not envy the gent. I have no ambition to float indefinitely. And if I didn’t happen to have it on when the crash came, I doubt whether I could spare the time to change. And besides, if I ever do feel that I can afford one hundred dollars for a suit, I won’t want to wear it for the edification of mere fish.
When Svengali isn’t busy pursing, he is usually engaged in chess matches with another of the officers. The rest of the idle portion of the crew stand round the table and look on. Sometimes they look on for an hour without seeing a move made, but they never seem to lose interest. Every little movement brings forth a veritable torrent of français from the spectators. I can understand the fascination of chess from the player’s end, but could get few thrills from watching, especially when there was standing room only.
Far more fascinating to look at is the game two of my French trough mates play at breakfast. The rules are simple. You take a muffin about the size of a golf ball. You drop it into your cup of chocolate. Then you fish for it, sometimes with a spoon, but more often with your fingers. The object is to convey it to your mouth without discoloring your necktie. Success comes three times in five.
The players are about evenly matched. One of them I suspect, is not in the game for sport’s sake, but has a worthier object. Nature supplied him with a light gray mustache, and a chocolate brown would blend better with his complexion. If the muffins hold out, his color scheme will be perfect before we reach port.
The discovery has been made that there’s a man on board who plays the cornet, so if we are subbed it will not be an unmitigated evil.
Friday, August 10.
Every morning one sees on the deck people one never saw before, and as we have not stopped at any stations since we started, the inference is that certain parties have not found the trip a continuous joy ride.
A news bulletin, published every morning, sometimes in English and sometimes in French, keeps us right up to date on thrilling events, thrillingly spelled. I have copied a sample:
It is now the tim for the final invaseon of the west by the eastren american league teams and before this clash is over it will be definitively known wether the two sox teams are to fight it out in a nip and tuk finish or wether the Chicago sox will have a comfortable margen to insure a world series betwean the two largest American citys Chicago and New York.
The French news deals exclusively with the developments in the world series Over There, which is, perhaps, almost as important.
A new acquaintance made today was that of the Gentleman from Louisiana. He introduced himself to scold me and another guy for not taking sufficient exercise. We told him we found little pleasure in promenading the deck.
“That’s unnecessary,” he said. “Get yourselves a pair of three-pound dumbbells and use them a certain length of time every day.”
So we are constantly on the lookout for a dumbbell shop, but there seems to be a regrettable lack of such establishments in mid-ocean.
The Gentleman from Louisiana says he is going to join the Foreign Legion if they’ll take him. He is only seventy years old.
“But age makes no difference to a man like I,” says he. “I exercise and keep hard. All my friends are hard and tough. Why, one of my friends, an undertaker, always carries a razor in his boot.”
Presumably this bird never allows psychological depression in his business.
The Gentleman from Louisiana continues:
“I’ve got a reputation for hardness, but I’m only hard when I know I’m right. I used such hard language once that they injected me from a committee. I was state senator then. But in all the time I held office I never talked more than two minutes.”
We expressed polite regret that he was not a state senator still. And we asked him to have a lemonade.
“No, thank you. Even the softest drinks have a peculiar effect on me. They make my toes stick together.”
We guaranteed to pry those members apart again after he had quenched his thirst, but he would not take a chance.
On the way cabinward from this fascinating presence, I was invited into a crap game on the salle à manger floor. The gentleman with the dice tossed a hundred-franc note into the ring and said: “Shoot it all.” And the amount was promptly oversubscribed. So I kept on going cabinward.
Samedi, 11
