“Poor thing,” we said, “you do look bad! Have you been ill?”
One is very crude in one’s questions on board ship.
“Oh, no; not ill!” She flung the suggestion from her with an acid titter. Then rolling a jaundiced eye upon us:
“Were you ill?”
“Oh, no,” we said; “we quite enjoyed the passage.”
The sufferer turned her glance from our brutality to the sympathetic neighbour.
“If I could have slept,” she said plaintively. Then she looked back darkly at us. “There were some horrible people in the cabin next me, who would talk, and talk, and talk.”
“Well,” we exclaimed, and it was indeed in all innocence, “you were at least better off than we were. For there was a creature in the cabin next to us—the most disgusting—the most unbridled—”
It was not till we saw the dreadful rage in her eyes that we realized! It is a horrible little anecdote, but it started us laughing even before we set foot on the quays.
IRISH VIGNETTES