Sixpence! Economy! Still, I couldn’t give him less. Moreover, I only had two pence in coppers.
“What will the voyage be like?” I asked him with false jollity, as he touched his cap.
“Grand, sir!” he replied enthusiastically.
Yes, and if I had given him a shilling the voyage would have been the most magnificent and utterly perfect voyage that ship ever made.
No sooner was I comfortably installed in that almost horizontal deck-chair than I was aware of a desire to roam about, watch the casting-off and the behaviour of the poor stay-at-home crowd on the landing-stage; a very keen desire. But I would not risk the portmanteau again. Nothing should part us till the gangways were withdrawn. Absurd, of course! Human nature is absurd.... I caught the charming young woman’s eye about a dozen times. The ship got fuller and fuller. With mean and paltry joy I perceived other passengers seeking for chairs and not finding them, and I gazed at them with haughty superiority. Then a fiendish, an incredible, an appalling screech over my head made me jump in a silly way quite unworthy of a man who is reclining next to a charming young woman, and apt to prejudice him in her eyes. It was merely the steamer announcing that we were off. I. sprang up, trying to make the spring seem part of the original jump. I looked. And lo! The whole landing-stage with all the people and horses and cabs was moving backwards, floating clean away; while the enormous ship stood quite still! A most singular effect!
In a minute we were in the middle of the river, and my portmanteau was safe. I left it in possession of the chair.
The next strange phenomenon of my mental condition was an extraordinary curiosity in regard to the ship. I had to explore it. I had to learn all about it. I began counting the people on the deck, but soon after I had come to the man with the unseemly black cigar I lost count. Then I went downstairs. There seemed to be staircases all over the place. You could scarcely move without falling down a staircase. And I came to another deck also full of people and bags, and fitted with other staircases that led still lower. And on the sloping ceiling of one of these lower staircases I saw the Board of Trade certificate of the ship. A most interesting document. It gave the tonnage as 2,000, and the legal number of passengers as about the same; and it said there were over two thousand life-belts on board, and room on the eight boats for I don’t remember how many shipwrecked voyagers. It even gave the captain’s Christian name. You might think that this would slake my curiosity. But, no! It urged me on. Lower down—somewhere near the caverns at the bottom of the sea, I came across marble halls, upholstered in velvet, where at snowy tables people were unconcernedly eating steaks and drinking tea. I said to myself “At such and such an hour I will come down here and have tea. It will break the monotony of the voyage.” Looking through the little round windows of the restaurant I saw strips of flying green.
Then I thought: “The engines!” And somehow the word “reciprocating” came into my mind. I really must go and see the engines reciprocate. I had never seen anything reciprocate, except possibly my Aunt Hilda at the New Year, when she answered my letter of good wishes. I discovered that many other persons had been drawn down towards the engine-room by the attraction of the spectacle of reciprocity. And as a spectacle it was assuredly majestic, overwhelming, and odorous. I must learn the exact number of times those engines reciprocated in a minute, and I took out my watch for the purpose. Other gazers at once did the same. It seemed to be a matter of the highest importance that we should know the precise speed of those engines. Then I espied a large brass plate which appeared to have been affixed to the engine room in order to inform the engineers that the ship was built by Messrs. Macconochie and Sons, of Dumbarton. Why Dumbarton? Why not Halifax? And why must this precious information always be staring the engineers in the face? I wondered whether “Sons” were married, and, if so, what the relations were between Sons’ wives and old Mrs. Macconochie. Then, far down, impossibly far down, furlongs beneath those gesticulating steely arms, I saw a coalpit on fire and demons therein with shovels. And all of a sudden it occurred to me that I might as well climb up again to my own special deck.