A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel | Page 4

His
whole song was a powerful anaesthetic, and many at the table did not
know the meal was over till the steward woke them up.
One among our crowd who really mattered was a tall, gloomy,
dyspeptic man, hard to approach, but once known he never failed to
harp on his favorite string,--the old masters and the Barbizon school of
painting. This man had all the ready veneer of the art connoisseur. He
used to talk by the hour about the great pictures he had seen, and gave
each artist a descriptive niche for what he thought him famous: such as,
the expression of Rubens; the grace of Raphael; the purity of
Domenichino; the correggiosity of Correggio; the learning of Poussin;
the air of Guido; the taste of Coraceis, and the drawing of
Michelangelo. This, of course, was all Greek to most of us, but it raised
the tone of the smoking-room and enveloped the entire ship in a highly
artistic atmosphere which no odors from the galley could overcome.
Incidentally I may say, however, he didn't know all about them, for one
day a wag set a trap for him by saying he had had a fine bit of Botticelli
at dinner.
"My dear sir," exclaimed our "authority," "Botticelli isn't a cheese; he
was a famous fiddler!"
"I have always had an impression he was an old master," said another
passenger, who was an amused listener.
It is impossible for any large body of travelers to escape the man who
by every device tries to impress his fellows with the idea that he is a
Mungo Park on his travels, and so our harmless impostor had his
"trunkage" plastered with labels from all parts of the world, sold to him
by hotel porters, who deal in them. He wore the fez, of course, and
sported a Montenegrin order on his lapel; he had Turkish slippers; he
carried a Malacca cane; he wrapped himself in a Mohave blanket and
he wore a Caracas carved gold ring on his four-in-hand scarf. But his
crowning effort was in wearing the great traveling badge, the English
fore-and-aft checked cap, with its ear flaps tied up over the crown,
leaving the front and rear scoops exposed. Not all of the passengers
carried this array of proofs, but many dabbled in them just a little bit. It

doesn't do, however, when assuming this role to have had your hair cut
in Rome, New York, or to have bought your "pants" in Paris, Texas, for
if you are guilty in those matters you will give the impression of being
a mammoth comique on his annual holiday.
The dear lady who delights in "piffle," and to whom "pifflage" is the
very breath of life, had also her niche in our affairs. She hailed from
Egg Harbor and was an antique guinea hen of uncertain age. When you
are thinking of the "white porch of your home," she will tell you she
"didn't sleep a wink last night!" that "the eggs on this steamer are not
what they ought to be," that the cook doesn't know how to boil them,
and that as her husband is troubled with insomnia her son is quite likely
to run down from the harbor to meet her at the landing two months
hence. Then she will turn to the query by asking if you think the
captain is a fit man to run this steamer; if the purser would be likely to
change a sovereign for her; what tip she should give her steward;
whether you think Mrs. Galley-West's pearls are real, and whether the
Customs are as strict with passengers as they used to be; whether any
real cure for seasickness has yet been found, and why are they always
painting the ship? Not being able to think of anything else she leaves
her victim, to his infinite relief. Oh you! iridescent humming-bird!
The men who yacht and those who motor are of course anxious to
attract attention. The freshwater yachtsman (usually river or pond),
plants his insignia of office on his cap. It is generally a combination of
a spread-eagle and a "hydriad," surrounded by the stars and stripes.
These things lift him above the level of those who would naturally be
his peers, and effect his purpose. The motorer sports his car duster on
all possible occasions, and thinks his goggles are necessary to protect
his eyes from the glare of the sun on the deck of the steamer. He has
large studs of motors, and always proposes to keep in front of the main
squeeze. The chatter relating to cars and yachts when these men were in
evidence was insistent and incessant. You were never allowed to forget
for a moment that they owned cars, power boats and runabouts,