You find yourself rather that
way. You wave at persons you know and then at persons you do not
know.
You continue to wave until the man alongside you, who has spent
years of his life learning to imitate a siren whistle with his
face, suddenly twines his hands about his mouth and lets go a
terrific blast right in your ear. Something seems to warn you
that you are not going to care for this man.
The pier, ceasing to be a long, outstretched finger, seems to fold
back into itself, knuckle-fashion, and presently is but a part
of the oddly foreshortened shoreline, distinguishable only by the
black dot of watchers clustered under a battery of lights, like a
swarm of hiving bees. Out in midstream the tugs, which have been
convoying the ship, let go of her and scuttle off, one in this
direction and one in that, like a brace of teal ducks getting out
of a walrus' way.
Almost imperceptibly her nose straightens down the river and soon
on the starboard quarter--how quickly one picks up these nautical
terms!--looming through the harbor mists, you behold the statue
of Miss Liberty, in her popular specialty of enlightening the
world. So you go below and turn in. Anyway, that is what I did;
for certain of the larger ships of the Cunard line sail at midnight
or even later, and this was such a ship.
For some hours I lay awake, while above me and below me and all
about me the boat settled down to her ordained ship's job, and
began drawing the long, soothing snores that for five days and
nights she was to continue drawing without cessation.
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