"Pay nothing," I said, "we bought tickets to Jaffa and you didn't land us there."
"All the passengers have paid it."
"We don't care if they have," said Richardson.
"I insist on your paying the money," the purser added in a most dignified manner.
"No money from us. What are you going to do about it?" I said.
"Well, if you persist in refusing to pay, I must have you write a letter to the Austrian Lloyd Company stating that you declined to do so. I want something to show the officials of the company."
"Sure, we will do that."
Richardson and I framed up the following brief epistle which we gladly gave the Austrian purser. He couldn't read English and didn't know what was in it.
"To the Austrian Lloyd Company:
We are a pair of religious fanatics making our monthly pilgrimage to Jerusalem. For the first time in our many trips on your company's boats we are charged an extra fare. We bought tickets to Jaffa—not to Haifa. The purser demands two dollars more and says the high sea is the cause of it. We refuse to pay for rough weather. If the captain took it into his head to go to Siam, we suppose that your purser would render us a bill. No, the gentleman is wrong.
R.J. Richardson,
Alfred C.B. Fletcher."
All the passengers went ashore at Haifa in small boats provided by the Thomas Cook and Son tourist agency. They paid five shillings each. Richardson and I stood on the deck and bargained with the native boatmen. We got them bidding against one another. One of them finally rowed the two of us to land for one shilling.