A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel | Page 6

at an officer's table, which were given them. Their opportunity came next day when they had donned their "glad rags," and stood in the centre of the smoking-room. A few minutes before the dinner gong sounded they drank a Martini, and looked over the heads of the crowd with an air of conscious superiority. Dinner started, they surrounded themselves with table waters and Rhine wines, ostentatiously popping corks and making a great show of "bottlage" for very little money. When they left their seats they were the men of the ship--in their own estimation; but they had shot their bolt and could go no further, so they settled down in a condition of social decay that became very distressing. This recalls an incident of Thackeray's: he once saw an unimportant looking man strutting along the deck of a steamer. Stepping up to him he said:
"Excuse me, sir, but are you any person in particular?"
Now we reach the post-card mania. This is the most pernicious disease that has ever seized humanity since the days of the Garden of Eden, and in no better place can it be seen at its worst than on a steamer calling at foreign ports: once it gets a foothold it supplants almost all other vices and becomes a veritable Frankenstein. It is harder to break away from this habit than from poker, gossiping, strong drink, tobacco, or even eating peas with your knife if you have been brought up that way. The majority of the "Corks" when landing at a port would not have stopped to say "Good morning" to Adam, to take a peep at Bwana Tumbo's hides and horns, or to pick up the Declaration of Independence if it lay at their feet--in their eager rush to load up with the cards necessary to let all their friends know that they had arrived at any given place on the map. This is but the first act in the drama, for stamps must be found, writing places must be secured, pencils, pens and ink must be had, together with a mailing list as long as to-day and to-morrow. The smoking-room is invaded, the lounge occupied, and every table, desk and chair in the writing-room is preempted, to the exclusion of all who are not addressing post-cards. Although we toiled like electrified beavers we got behind on the schedule, so that those who did not finish at Malta had to work hard to get their cards off at Constantinople, and so on through the trip. The chariot of Aurora would hardly hold their output at a single port. At the start it was a mild, pleasurable fad, but later it absorbed the victim's mind to such an extent that he thought of nothing but the licking of stamps and mailing of cards to friends--who get so many of them that they are for the most part considered a nuisance and after a hasty glance are quietly dropped in the waste-basket. Many had such an extensive collection of mailing lists that it became necessary to segregate them into divisions; in some cases these last were labeled for classification, "Atlantic Coast Line," "Middle West," "Canadian Provinces," "New England," "Europe," etc. Again they were subdivided into trades and professions, such as lawyers, ministers, politicians, stock brokers, real estate agents, bankers (in jail and out of it), dermatologists and "hoss-doctors." This habit obtained such a hold on people who were otherwise respectable that they would enter into any "fake," to gratify their obsession. Some of the "Corks" did not tour Spain but remained on the ship; many of these would get up packages of cards, dating them as if at Cadiz, Seville or Granada, and request those who were landing to mail them at the proper places, so as to impose on their friends at home. I felt no hesitancy, after silently receiving my share of this fraud, in quietly dropping them overboard as a just punishment for this impertinence. Incidents like this will account in part for the non-delivery of post-cards and the disappointment of those who did not receive them.
Our Purser had what is known in tonsorial circles as a "walrus" or drooping moustache; he was plied with so many foolish questions in regard to this mailing business that he became very nervous and tugged vigorously at this ornament whenever something new was sprung on him. It is said that water will wear a hole in stone, and so it came to pass that he pulled his moustache out, hair by hair, till there were left only nine on a side. The style of his adornment was then necessarily changed to the "baseball," by which it was known to the "fans" on board.
The handling of this enormous output has already become an international postal problem of grave importance