Читать книгу A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel - Samuel G. Bayne - Страница 41

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The King of Cork was a funny ship As ever ploughed the maine: She kep' no log, she went whar she liked; So her Cap'n warn't to blaime.

The Management was funnier still.

We always thought it dandy—

Till it wrecked us on the Golden Horn,

When we meant to land at Kandy.

The Cap'n ran the boat ashore

In aerated waters;

The Purser died by swallowin' gas,

Thus windin' up these matters.

L'Envoi

Fate's relentless finger,

Points to the Purser's doom:

He gulped the seltzer quickly—

Then bust with an air-tight boom!

Taking my cue from this short, spasmodic dream I had one evening in a steamer chair, of what I imagined was to happen on our coming voyage, I started to scribble; and following the fantastic idea in the vision, I shall adopt the abbreviated name of The Cork, for our good ship—although some of the passengers preferred to call her The Corker, as she was big and fine, and justly celebrated among those who go down to the sea in fear and trembling. The fame of this ship and her captain spread so far and wide that a worthy band of male and female pilgrims besought him to take them to foreign parts, for a consideration.

There was great ado at starting, and when we finally steamed out of New York harbor past the "Goddess of Liberty" one fine morning, the air was rent with the screeching of steam sirens and the tooting of whistles. The "Goddess" stood calm and silent on her pedestal; she looked virtuous (which was natural to her, being made of metal), but her stoic indifference was somewhat upset by an icy stalactite that hung from her classic nose. One of the passengers remarked that Bartholdi ought to have supplied her with a handkerchief, but this suggestion was considered flippant by his Philistine audience, and it made no impression whatever.

The list of passengers stood at seven hundred, and an extensive programme of entertainments was promoted for their amusement, consisting of balls, lectures, glees, games of bridge whist and progressive euchre, concerts, readings, and a bewildering schedule of functions, too numerous to mention; in fact, it was a case of three rings under one tent and a dozen side shows.

The passenger list comprised many examples of eccentric characters, rarely found outside of the pages of Dickens; the majority, however, were very interesting and refined people, and the exceptional types only served to accentuate the desirability and variety of their companionship on a voyage of this character. Here is a description of some of them, exaggerated perhaps in places, but not far from the facts when the peculiar conditions surrounding them are fully considered. Many of them were doing their best to attract attention in a harmless way, and in most cases they succeeded, as there is really nothing so immaterial that it escapes all notice from our fellows.

For instance, there was a human skyscraper, a giant, who had an immense pyramid of tousled hair—a Matterhorn of curls and pomatum—who gloried in its possession and scorned to wear hat, bonnet or cap. When it rained he went out to enjoy a good wetting, and came back a dripping bear. The sight made those of us who had but little hair atop our pates green with envy, as all we could now hope for was not hair but that the shellac finish on our polls might be dull and not shiny. This man also sat or stood in the sun by the hour to acquire that brick-red tan that is "quite English, you know;" and he got it, but it did not altogether match with the other coloring which nature had bestowed upon him. Then we had a "fidgetarian," who was one of the unlaundered ironies of life; he could not keep still for a moment. This specimen was from Throgg's Neck, and danced the carmagnole in concentric circles all by himself, twisting in and out between the waltzers evidently with the feeling that he was the "whole show," and that the other dancers were merely accessories to the draught he made, and followed in his wake. He was a half portion in the gold-filled class, and a charter member of the Forty-second Street Country Club.

We were also honored by the presence of Mrs. Handy Jay Andy, of Alexandry, who had "stunted considerable" in Europe, and was anxious to repeat the performance in the Levant. She didn't carry a pug dog, but she thought a "lady" ought to tote round with her something in captivity, so she compromised on a canary, which she bought in Smyrna, where all the good figs come from. She was a colored supplement to high-toned marine society.

No collection of this kind would be complete without a military officer, and we had him all right; we called him "the General," a man who jested at scars and who had a beard out of which a Pullman pillow might be easily constructed. On gala nights he decorated himself with medals, and on the whole was a very ornamental piece of human bric-à-brac. Of course we had the man with the green—but not too French green—hat. He had a curly duck's tail, dyed green, sticking up in its rear, so that the view from the back would resemble Emperor William. He attracted attention, but somehow seemed like an empty green bottle thrown in the surf.

Some of the ladies had their little peculiarities also. There was Mrs. Galley-West from North Fifth Avenue, New York, a "widow-lady," whose name went up on the social electric-light sign when she began to ride home in a limousine. She stated that everybody who was anybody in that great city knew who she was and all about her. Nobody disputed her statements. As time elapsed she became very confidential, and one day stated that she was matrimonially inclined and intimated that she would welcome an introduction to an aged millionaire in delicate health, as it might result in her being able to carry out some ambitious plans she had made in "philomathy." By the time we reached Cairo she had lowered her figures to a very modest amount—but she is still a widow.

The human mushroom was also in evidence—the girl narrow and straight up-and-down, like a tube ending in a fishtail, with a Paquin wrap and a Virot hat, reinforced with a steel net wire neck-band—the very latest fads from Paris. Her gowns were grand, her hats were great, I tell you! When some one was warbling at the piano, she would put her elbow on the lid of the "baby grand," face the audience, and strike a stained-glass attitude that would make Raphael's cartoons look like subway posters.