In the crowded street-car he may keep
his seat; in the crowded lifeboat he gives it up.
I almost forgot to mention one other detail in which, so far as I
could judge, we lead the whole of the Old World--dentistry.
Probably you have seen frequent mention in English publications
about decayed gentlewomen. Well, England is full of them. It
starts with the teeth.
The leisurely, long, slantwise course across the Atlantic gives
one time, also, for making the acquaintance of one's fellow
passengers and for wondering why some of them ever went to Europe
anyway. A source of constant speculation along these lines was
the retired hay-and-feed merchant from Michigan who traveled with
us. One gathered that he had done little else in these latter
years of his life except to traipse back and forth between the two
continents. What particularly endeared him to the rest of us was
his lovely habit of pronouncing all words of all languages according
to a fonetic system of his own. "Yes, sir," you would hear him
say, addressing a smoking-room audience of less experienced
travelers, "my idee is that a fellow ought to go over on an English
ship, if he likes the exclusability, and come back on a German
ship if he likes the sociableness. Take my case. The last trip
I made I come over on the Lucy Tanner and went back agin on the
Grocer K.
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