Europe Revised | Page 8

Judge Stinging Lizard, for short.
There was the spry and conversational gentleman who looked like an
Englishman, but was of the type commonly denominated in our own
land as breezy. So he could not have been an Englishman. Once in a
while there comes along an Englishman who is windy, and frequently
you meet one who is drafty; but there was never a breezy Englishman
yet.
With that interest in other people's business which the close
communion of a ship so promptly breeds in most of us, we fell to
wondering who and what he might be; but the minute the suspect came
into the salon for dinner the first night out I read his secret at a glance.
He belonged to a refined song-and-dance team doing sketches in
vaudeville. He could not have been anything else--he had jet buttons on
his evening clothes.
There was the young woman--she had elocutionary talents, it turned out
afterward, and had graduated with honors from a school of
expression--who assisted in getting up the ship's concert and then took
part in it, both of those acts being mistakes on her part, as it proved.
And there was the official he-beauty of the ship. He was without a
wrinkle in his clothes--or his mind either; and he managed to maneuver
so that when he sat in the smoking room he always faced a mirror. That
was company enough for him. He never grew lonely or bored then.
Only one night he discovered something wrong about one of his
eyebrows. He gave a pained start; and then, oblivious of those of us

who hovered about enjoying the spectacle, he spent a long time
working with the blemish. The eyebrow was stubborn, though, and he
just couldn't make it behave; so he grew petulant and fretful, and finally
went away to bed in a huff. Had it not been for fear of stopping his
watch, I am sure he would have slapped himself on the wrist.
This fair youth was one of the delights of the voyage. One felt that if he
had merely a pair of tweezers and a mustache comb and a hand glass he
would never, never be at a loss for a solution of the problem that
worries so many writers for the farm journals--a way to spend the long
winter evenings pleasantly.

Chapter II

My Bonny Lies over the Ocean--Lies and Lies and Lies
Of course, we had a bridal couple and a troupe of professional deep-sea
fishermen aboard. We just naturally had to have them. Without them, I
doubt whether the ship could have sailed. The bridal couple were from
somewhere in the central part of Ohio and they were taking their
honeymoon tour; but, if I were a bridal couple from the central part of
Ohio and had never been to sea before, as was the case in this particular
instance, I should take my honeymoon ashore and keep it there. I most
certainly should! This couple of ours came aboard billing and cooing to
beat the lovebirds. They made it plain to all that they had just been
married and were proud of it. Their baggage was brand-new, and the
groom's shoes were shiny with that pristine shininess which, once
destroyed, can never be restored; and the bride wore her
going-and-giving-away outfit.
Just prior to sailing and on the morning after they were all over the ship.
Everywhere you went you seemed to meet them and they were always
wrestling. You entered a quiet side passage--there they were,
exchanging a kiss--one of the long-drawn, deep-siphoned, sirupy kind.
You stepped into the writing room thinking to find it deserted, and at
sight of you they broke grips and sprang apart, eyeing you like a pair of
startled fawns surprised by the cruel huntsman in a forest glade. At all
other times, though, they had eyes but for each other.

A day came, however--and it was the second day out--when they were
among the missing. For two days and two nights, while the good ship
floundered on the tempestuous bosom of the overwrought ocean, they
were gone from human ken. On the afternoon of the third day, the sea
being calmer now, but still sufficiently rough to satisfy the most
exacting, a few hardy and convalescent souls sat in a shawl-wrapped
row on the lee side of the ship.
There came two stewards, bearing with them pillows and blankets and
rugs. These articles were disposed to advantage in two steamer chairs.
Then the stewards hurried away; but presently they reappeared,
dragging the limp and dangling forms of the bridal couple from the
central part of Ohio. But oh, my countrymen, what a spectacle! And
what a change from what had been!
The going-away gown was wrinkled, as though worn for