Europe Revised | Page 7

I judge I had better
make this comparison in the singular number --there would not have
been room in him for more than one canary.
Every morning for an hour, and again every afternoon for an hour, he
marched solemnly round and round the promenade deck, always alone
and always with his mournful gaze fixed on the far horizon. As I said
before, however, he stood very high in the air, and it may have been he
feared, if he ever did look down at his feet, he should turn dizzy and be
seized with an uncontrollable desire to leap off and end all; so I am not
blaming him for that.
He would walk his hour out to the sixtieth second of the sixtieth minute
and then he would sit in his steamer chair, as silent as a glacier and as
inaccessible as one. If it were afternoon he would have his tea at five
o'clock and then, with his soul still full of cracked ice, he would go
below and dress for dinner; but he never spoke to anyone. His steamer
chair was right-hand chair to mine and often we practically touched
elbows; but he did not see me once.
I had a terrible thought. Suppose now, I said to myself--just suppose
that this ship were to sink and only we two were saved; and suppose we

were cast away on a desert island and spent years and years there, never
knowing each other's name and never mingling together socially until
the rescue ship came along--and not even then unless there was some
mutual acquaintance aboard her to introduce us properly! It was indeed
a frightful thought! It made me shudder.
Among our company was a younger son going home after a tour of the
Colonies--Canada and Australia, and all that sort of bally rot. I believe
there is always at least one younger son on every well-conducted
English boat; the family keeps him on a remittance and seems to feel
easier in its mind when he is traveling. The British statesman who said
the sun never sets on British possessions spoke the truth, but the
reporters in committing his memorable utterance to paper spelt the
keyword wrong--undoubtedly he meant the other kind--the younger
kind.
This particular example of the species was in every way up to grade
and sample. A happy combination of open air, open pores and open
casegoods gave to his face the exact color of a slice of rare roast beef; it
also had the expression of one. With a dab of English mustard in the
lobe of one ear and a savory bit of watercress stuck in his hair for a
garnish, he could have passed anywhere for a slice of cold roast beef.
He was reasonably exclusive too. Not until the day we landed did he
and the Honorable member of the legation learn--quite by chance --that
they were third cousins--or something of that sort--to one another. And
so, after the relationship had been thoroughly established through the
kindly offices of a third party, they fraternized to the extent of riding up
to London on the same boat-train, merely using different compartments
of different carriages. The English aristocrat is a tolerably social animal
when traveling; but, at the same time, he does not carry his sociability
to an excess. He shows restraint.
Also, we had with us the elderly gentleman of impaired disposition,
who had crossed thirty times before and was now completing his
thirty-first trip, and getting madder and madder about it every minute. I
saw him only with his clothes on; but I should say, speaking offhand,
that he had at least fourteen rattles and a button. His poison sacs hung
'way down. Others may have taken them for dewlaps, but I knew better;
they were poison sacs.
It was quite apparent that he abhorred the very idea of having to cross

to Europe on the same ocean with the rest of us, let alone on the same
ship. And for persons who were taking their first trip abroad his
contempt was absolutely unutterable; he choked at the bare mention of
such a criminal's name and offense. You would hear him communing
with himself and a Scotch and soda.
"Bah!" he would say bitterly, addressing the soda-bottle. "These idiots
who've never been anywhere talking about this being rough weather!
Rough weather, mind you! Bah! People shouldn't be allowed to go to
sea until they know something about it. Bah!"
By the fourth day out his gums were as blue as indigo, and he was so
swelled up with his own venom he looked dropsical. I judged his bite
would have caused death in from twelve to fourteen minutes, preceded
by coma and convulsive rigors. We called him old Colonel Gila
Monster or