We learned to wait regularly for the ceremony of seeing Sir Monocle
and his load toted off to bed at nine o'clock every night, just
as we learned to linger in the offing and watch the nimble knife-work
when the prize invalid of the ship's roster had cornered a fresh
victim. The prize invalid, it is hardly worth while to state, was
of the opposite sex. So many things ailed her--by her own confession
--that you wondered how they all found room on the premises at the
same time. Her favorite evening employment was to engage another
woman in conversation--preferably another invalid--and by honeyed
words and congenial confidences, to lead the unsuspecting prey on
and on, until she had her trapped, and then to turn on her suddenly
and ridicule the other woman's puny symptoms and tell her she didn't
even know the rudiments of being ill and snap her up sharply when
she tried to answer back. And then she would deliver a final sting
and go away without waiting to bury her dead. The poison was in
the postscript--it nearly always is with that type of female. But
afterward she would justify herself by saying people must excuse
her manner--she didn't mean anything by it; it was just her way,
and they must remember that she suffered constantly. Some day
when I have time, I shall make that lady the topic of a popular
song. I have already fabricated the refrain: Her heart was in the
right place, lads, but she had a floating kidney!
Arrives a day when you develop a growing distaste for the company
of your kind, or in fact, any kind.
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