The Bad Boy Writes the Old Groceryman About Ocean Voyages--
His Dad Has an Argument Over a Steamer Chair.
On Board the Lucinia, Mid-ocean.
Dear Old Geezer.
I take the first opportunity, since leaving New York, to write you,
'cause the boat, after three days out, has got settled down so it runs
level, and I can write without wrapping my legs around the table legs,
to hold me down. I have tried a dozen times to write, but the sea was so
rough that part of the time the table was on top of me and part of the
time I was on top, and I was so sick I seem to have lost my mind, over
the rail, with the other things supposed to be inside of me. O, old man,
you think you know what seasickness is, 'cause you told me once about
crossing Lake Michigan on a peach boat, but lake sickness is easy
compared with the ocean malady. I could enjoy common seasickness and
think it was a picnic, but this salt water sickness takes the cake. I am
sorry for dad, because he holds more than I do, and he is so slow
about giving up meals that he has paid for, that it takes him longer to
commune with nature, and he groans so, and swears some.
[Illustration: I am sorry for dad, because he holds more than I do 074]
I don't see how a person can swear when he is seasick on the ocean, with
no sure thing that he will ever see land again, and a good prospect of
going to the bottom, where you got to die in the arms of a devil fish,
with a shark biting pieces out of your tender loin and a smoked halibut
waiting around for his share of your corpse, and whales blowing syphons
of water and kicking because they are so big that they can't get at you
to chew cuds of human gum, and porpoises combing your damp hair with
their fine tooth comb fins, and sword fish and sawtooth piscatorial
carpenters sawing off steaks. Gee, but it makes me crawl. I once saw a
dead dog in the river, with bull heads and dog-fish ripping him up the
back, and I keep thinking I had rather be that dog, in a nice river at
home, with bullheads that I knew chewing me at their leisure, than to be
a dead boy miles down in the ocean, with strange fish and sea serpents
quarreling over the tender pieces in me. A man told me that if you smoke
cigarets and get saturated with nickoteen, and you are drownded, the
fish will smell of you, and turn up their noses and go away and leave
your remains, so I tried a cigaret, and, gosh, but I had rather be et
by fish than smoke another, on an ocean steamer. It only added to my
sickness, and I had enough before. I prayed some, when the boat stood on
its head and piled us all up in the front end, but a chair struck me on
the place where Fitzsimmons hit Corbett, and knocked the prayer all out
of me, and when the boat stood on her butt end and we all slid back the
whole length of the cabin, and I brought up under the piano, I tried to
sing a hymn, such as I used to in the 'Piscopal choir, before my voice
changed, but the passengers who were alive yelled for some one to choke
me, and I didn't sing any more. Dad was in the stateroom when we were
rolling back and forth in the cabin, and between sicknesses he came
out to catch me and take me into the stateroom, but he got the rolling
habit, too, and he rolled a match with an actress who was voyaging for
her health, and they got offully mixed up. He tried to rescue her, and
grabbed hold of her belt and was reeling her in all right, when a man
who said he was her husband took dad by the neck and said he must keep
his hands off or get another nose put on beside the one he had, and then
they all rolled under a sofa, and how it came out I don't know, but the
next morning dad's eye was blacked, and the fellow who said he was her
husband had his front teeth knocked out, and the actress lost her back
hair and had to wear a silk handkerchief tied around her head the rest
of the trip, and she looked like a hired girl who has been out to a
saloon dance.
The trouble with dad is that he butts in too much. He thinks he is the
whole thing and thinks every crowd he sees is a demonstration for him.
When the steamer left New York, there were hundreds of people on the
dock to see friends off, and they had flowers to present to Unfriends,
and dad thought they were all for him, and he reached for every bunch of
roses that was brought aboard, and was going to return thanks for them,
when they were jerked away from him, and he looked hurt. When the gang
plank was pulled in, and the boat began to wheeze, and grunt, and move
away from the dock, and dad saw the crowd waving handkerchiefs and
laughing, and saying _bon voyage_, he thought they were doing it all for
him, and he started in to make a speech, thanking his fellow countrymen
for coming to see him off, and promising them that he would prove a true
representative of his beloved country in his travels abroad, and that
he would be true to the stars and stripes wherever fortune might place
him, and all that rot, when the boat got so far away they could not hear
him, and then he came off his perch, and said, “Hennery, that little
impromptu demonstration to your father, on the eve of his departure from
his native land, perhaps never to return, ought to be a deep and lasting
lesson to you, and to show you that the estimation in which I am held
by our people, is worth millions to you, and you can point with pride to
your father.” I said “rats” and dad said he wouldn't wonder if the boat
was full of rats, and then we stood on deck, and watched the objects of
interest down the bay.
[Illustration: A speech, thanking his fellow countrymen 078]
As we passed the statue of Liberty, which France gave to the republic,
on Bedloe's Island, dad started to make a speech to the passengers, but
one of the officers of the boat told dad this was no democratic caucus,
and that choked him off, but he was loaded for a speech, and I knew
it was only a matter of time when he would have to fire it off, but I
thought when we got outside the bar, into the ocean, his speech would
come up with the rest of the stuff, and I guess it did, for after he
began to be sea sick he had to keep his mouth shut, which was a great
relief to me, for I felt that he would say something that would get this
country in trouble with other nations, as there were lots of foreigners
on board. I heard that J. Pierpont Morgan was on board, and I told
everybody I got in conversation with that dad was Pierpont Morgan, and
when people began to call him Mr. Morgan, I told dad the passengers
thought he was Morgan; the great financier, and it tickled dad, and he
never denied it. Anyway, the captain put dad and I at his own table,
and he called me “Little Pierp,” and everybody discussed great financial
questions with dad, and everything would have been lovely the whole
trip, only Morgan came amongst us after he had been sea sick for three
days, and they gave him a seat opposite us, and with two Morgans at the
same table it was a good deal like two Uncle Tom's in an Uncle Tom's
Cabin show, so dad had to stay in his stateroom on account of sickness,
a good deal. Then dad got to walking on deck and flirting with the
female passengers. Say, did you ever see an old man who was stuck on
hisself, and thought that every woman who looked at him, from curiosity,
or because he had a wart on his neck, and watch him get busy making 'em
believe he is a young and kitteny thing, who is irresistible? Gee,
but it makes me tired. No man can mash, and make eyes, and have a love
scene, when he has to go to the rail every few minutes and hump hisself
with something in him that is knocking at the door of his palate, to
come out the same way it went in. Dad found a widow woman who looked
back at him kind of sassy, when he braced up to her, and when the ship
rolled and side-stepped, he took hold of her arm to steady her, and she
said maybe they better sit down on deck and talk it over, so dad found
a couple of steamer chairs that were not in use, and they sat down near
together, and dad took hold of her hand to see if she was nervous, and
he told me I could go any play mumbletypeg in the cabin, and I went in
the cabin and looked out of the window at dad and the widow. Say, you
wouldn't think two chairs could get so close, and dad was sure love
sick, and so was she. The difference between love sick and sea sick is
that in love sick you look red in the face and snuggle up, and squeeze
hands, and look fondly, and swallow your emotion, and try to wait
patiently until it is dark enough so the spectators won't notice
anything, and in sea sickness you get pale in the face, and spread
apart, and let go of hands, and after you have stood it as long as
you can you rush to the rail and act as though you were going to jump
overboard, and then stop sudden and let-'er-go-gallagher, right before
folks, and after it is over you try to look as though you had enjoyed
it. I will say this much for dad, he and the widow never played a duet
over the rail, but they took turns, and dad held her as tenderly as
though they were engaged, and when he got her back to the steamer chair
he stroked her face and put camphor to her nose, and acted like an
undertaker that wasn't going to let the remains get away from him. They
were having a nice convalescent time, just afore it broke up, and hadn't
either of them been sick for ten minutes, and dad had put his arm around
her shoulders, and was talking cunning to her, and she was looking
lovingly into dad's eyes, and they were talking of meeting again in
France in a few weeks, where she was going to rent a villa, and dad was
saying he would be there with both feet, when I opened the window and
said, “The steward is bringing around a lunch, and I have ordered two
boiled pork sandwiches for you two easy marks.” Well, you'd a dide to
see 'em jump. What there is about the idea of fat pork that makes people
who are sea sick have a relapse, I don't know, but the woman grabbed her
stum-mix in both hands and left dad and rushed into the cabin yelling
“enough,” or something like that, and dad laid right back in the chair
and blatted like a calf, and said he would kill me dead when we got
ashore. Just then an Englishman came along and told dad he better get
up out of his chair, and dad said whose chair you talking about, and the
man said the chair was his, and if dad didn't get out of it, he would
kick him in the pants, and dad said he hadn't had a good chance at an
Englishman since the Revolutionary war, and he just wanted a chance
to clean up enough Englishmen for a mess, and dad got up and stood at
“attention,” and the Englishman squared off like a prize fighter, and
they were just going to fight the battle of Bunker Hill over again, when
I run up to an officer with gold lace on his coat and lemon pie on his
whiskers, and told him an old crazy Yankee out on deck was going to
murder a poor sea sick Englishman, and the officer rushed out and took
dad by the coat collar and made him quit, and when he found what the
quarrel was about, he told dad all the chairs were private property
belonging to the passengers, and for him to keep out of them, and he
apologized to the Englishman and they went into the saloon and settled
it with high balls, and dad beat the Englishman by drinking two high
balls to his one. Then dad set into a poker game, with ten cents ante,
and no limit, and they played along for a while until dad got four
jacks, and he bet five dollars, and a Frenchman raised him five thousand
dollars, and dad laid down his hand and said the game was too rich for
his blood, and when he reached in his vest pocket for money to pay for
his poker chips he found that his roll was gone, and he said he would
leave his watch for security until he could go to his state room and get
some money, and then he found that his watch had been pinched, and the
Englishman said he would be good for it, and dad came out in the cabin
and wanted me to help him find the widow, cause he said when she laid
her head on his shoulder, to recover from her sickness, he felt a
fumbling around his vest, but he thought it was nothing but his stomach
wiggling to get ready for another engagement, but now he knew she had
robbed him. Say, dad and I looked all over that boat for the widow, but
she simply had evaporated. But land is in sight, and we shall land at
Liverpool this afternoon, and dad is going to lay for the widow at the
gang plank, and he won't do a thing to her. I guess not. Well, you will
hear from me in London next, and I'll tell you if dad got his money and
watch back.
Hennery.