You told me when I set sail (I didn't set sail myself, you understand,
but the men did it for me, or rather for my friends, Mr and Mrs.
SKIPPER, to whose kindness I owe my present position--which is far
from a secure one,--but no matter), you said to me, YORICK Yotting
has no buffoonery left in him? I too, who was once the life of all
the Lifes and Souls of a party! Where is that party now? Where am _I_?
What is my life on board? Life!--say existence. I rise early; I can't
help it. I am tubbed on deck: deck'd out in my best towels. So I
commence the day by going to Bath. [That's humorous, isn't it? I hope
so. I mean it as such.]
[Illustration]
"Send me notes of your voyage to Sweden and Norway, and the land of
_Hamlet_. You'll see lots of funny things, and you'll take a humorous
view of what isn't funny; send me your humorous views." Well, Sir, I
sent you "_Mr. Punch looking at the Midnight Sun_." pretty humorous I
think ("more pretty than humorous," you cabled to me at Bergen), and
since that I have sent you several beautiful works of Art, in return
for which I received another telegram from you saying, "No 'go.' Send
something funny." The last I sent ("_The Church-going Bell_," a
pretty peasant woman in a boat--"_belle_," you see) struck me as very
humorous. The idea of people going to Church in a boat!
What was I to do? Well--here at last I send you something which _must_
be humorous. It looks like it. _Mr. Punch_ driving in Norway, in a
_cariole. Mr. Punch_ anywhere is humorous; and with TOBY too; though I
am perfectly aware that TOBY, M.P., is in his place in the House;
but then TOBY is ubarquitous. That's funny, isn't it?--see "bark"
substituted for "biq," the original word being "ubiquitous." This is
the sort of "_vürdtwistren_" at which they roar in Sweden.
It's all _très bien_ (very well) but how the deuce can you be funny in
the Baltic? Why call it Baltic? For days and nights at sea, sometimes
up, more often down, and a sense of inability coming over me in the
middle of the boundless deep. Alas, poor YORICK!
Then breakfast. Then lunch. Then dinner. No drinking permitted between
meals: to which regulation. _I am gradually becoming habituated._ It
is difficult to acquire new habits. Precious difficult in mid-ocean,
where there isn't a tailor. [Humorous again, eh?] I now understand
what is the meaning of "a Depression is crossing the Atlantic."
There's an awful Depression hanging about the Baltic.
[Illustration]
I send you a sketch of Elsinore, as I thought it would be, and
Elsinore as it is. Elsinore is like the Pumping Works at Barking
Creek. And I've come all this way to see this!! Elsinore! I'd rather
go Elsewhere-inore,--say, Margate.
Think I shall put this in a bottle, cork it up, and send it overboard,
and you'll get it by Tidal Post. Whether I do this or not depends on
circumstances over which I may possibly have no control. Anyhow, at
dinner-time, _I shall ask for the bottle._ When you ask for it, see
that you get it.
Yours truly,
JETSAM
_(or Yotting Artist in Black and White). 10 A.M. Swedish time 9.5 in
English miles. Longitude 4 ft. 8 in. in my berth. Latitude, any amount
of._
* * * * *
AN EXCELLENT RULE.--We are informed that "extreme ugliness" and "male
hysteria" are admitted as "adequate disqualifications" for the French
Army. If the same rule only applied to the English House of Commons,
what a deal of noise and nonsense we should be spared!
[Illustration: A METROPOLITAN METAMORPHOSIS.
_The Awful Result of Persistent "Crawling."_]
* * * * *