Ship-Bored

Excerpt

PREFACE

Whatever the effect of "Ship-Bored" upon others, its publication has exerted a very definite effect upon me, or rather upon the character of my daily mail. Instead of letters the postman now leaves little packages containing pills which, according to the senders, will prevent the casting of bread upon the waters.

It is astonishing to learn how many sea-sick remedies there are. Looking at the bottles and the boxes piled, each morning by my breakfast plate, I sometimes wonder if there aren't as many remedies as sufferers.

But suppose there are? Why do people send the medicines to me? Why do perfect strangers assume that, because I have taken up the task of muck-raking the Atlantic Ocean, I am in need of antidotes for mal de mer? Even suppose that I do suffer thus at sea? Is it anybody else's business—or luncheon?

All great literary works are born of suffering. Stop the suffering and you stop the author. Yet people keep on sending pills to me—each pill an added insult if you choose to take it that way.

But I don't take them that way. I don't take them at all. I try them on my friends. When a friend of mine is sailing I send him a few pills out of a recent bottle. If he reports that he was sea-sick I throw away the balance of the bottle. The same if he dies. That shows that the pills are too strong.

I do not wish to take undue credit to myself for conducting these experiments. Since the pills are given to me, my researches cost me nothing—excepting an occasional friend whom (as he was sailing for Europe, anyway) I should not be able to see, even if he were alive.

J. S.

New York, January, 1912.

When the cabin port-holes are dark and green
Because of the seas outside;
When the ship goes wop (with a wiggle between)
And the steward falls into the soup-tureen,
And the trunks begin to slide;
When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap,
And Mummy tells you to let her sleep,
And you aren't waked or washed or dressed,
Why, then you will know (if you haven't guessed)
You're "Fifty North and Forty West!"

—Just-So Stories.

"Now run, dear! That's the gangway! You take the baby, and I'll take the fitted bag! Yes, I have the sea-sick tablets; they're here in my pocket with the tickets and the letters of credit and the travellers' cheques and the baby's mittens and the trunk keys and the—Well, I don't care who's here to see us off! People ought to know better! Now hurry up! There goes the whistle!"

It is an awful quarter of an hour, that quarter of an hour before the liner sails; that worrying, waving, whooping, whistling quarter of an hour through which you stand on deck like a human centre-piece loaded with candy, fruit, and flowers, surrounded by a phantasmagoria of friendly faces, talking like a dancing-man and feeling like a dancing dervish. Small wonder that the deafening whistle-blast and cry of "All ashore!" smite sweetly on your ears. Small wonder that you hand a dollar to your sister and kiss the porter who has brought your steamer-rugs.

Ah, blessed moment when the dock begins to move away with all those laughing, crying, waving, shouting people; when snub-nosed tugs begin to warp the ship into the stream; when the final howlings of the megaphonomaniacs sound dim. ("Bon voyage, Charlie!" "Take care of yourself, old man! Think of me in gay Par-ree!")

SMALL WONDER THAT YOU HAND A DOLLAR TO YOUR SISTER AND KISS THE PORTER.

You lean, in a dazed way, upon the rail, turning on maudlin grins and waving your cap at no one in particular, until the crowd becomes a moving blur upon the dock-end. The liner's nose points down the river; gentle vibrations tell you she is under way; small craft dip flags and toot as they go by; the man-made mountain of Manhattan's office buildings drops astern; the statue of Liberty, the shores of Staten Island, the flat back of Sandy Hook run past as though wound on rollers; the pilot goes over the side with a bag of farewell letters; the white yacht which has followed down the bay blows a parting blast, dips her ensign, and swings in a wide circle toward New York; the pursuing tug comes up and puts a tardy passenger aboard....