Commissioner Krull was the first to jump into the open-air swimming tank, some of the ladies following. But it took deck tennis and the tropics to make the tank popular.
Captain Nelson took us on a tour of inspection, and as eating was the principal occupation, we asked to see the electrically operated galley first, for, next to the bar, it was the chief attraction. We all have heard of electric dish washers, potato peelers, knife sharpeners, bread bakers, cake mixers, etc., but what a guarantee for matrimonial bliss there would be if every young bride could be as sure as this ship was to please the most particular of husbands. How? By using an automatic, electric egg boiler that can be set for any time, and when the desired number of minutes is reached, presto! up comes the egg out of the boiling water! Not a second overdone, or underdone. In China some of us were given, as a great delicacy, a "twenty-year-old egg" and toward the end of the trip many of us had lost interest in all eggs, no matter how cooked.
The stoves burn oil, and although the day was hot, and the noon meal was in preparation, there was no excessive heat and no fumes. The white-clad Chinese waiters did their appointed tasks with the smoothness and lack of confusion of clockwork.
Our smiling waiters greeted us every morning in long blue kimonos. Ours answered to the name of Arling, and after one had ordered an abnormal breakfast, he suggested that the griddle cakes were "veery goo-wd." Everyone ate more than they ever thought they could, and when at eleven o'clock, the deck boy came along with broth, few there were that had the courage to say, "No." The tang of the sea caused groups to invade the charming tea-room, with its yellow curtains and painted wicker furniture, at tiffin time. And if chicken, a-la-King, was served after the nightly dancing party, - well, everyone said, "We don't make a trip like this every day, so, why not?"
There was a weighing machine on the lower deck, but, we all believed that it must have been out of order. If we had not gained any more pounds than we had spent for oriental souvenirs, we would have been lucky.
Some of the older members of the party welcomed the Sunday evening movies instead of the strenuous dancing, but we were all glad to go to bed after the movie villain had been killed.
Chapter II
The servants were so attentive and the beds so soft that many of the ladies fell into the custom of having breakfast in the staterooms.
After lunch one sunny day we mounted the steep little stairs to the captain's quarters. His spacious combination living and bedroom with private bath was a miracle to those of us who had to have the room boy move the luggage in order to have space enough to open the quaint little bureau drawers. On his center table was one of those strange dwarf Japanese trees, that are not permitted to be imported. These odd plants seem to thrive in spite of their diet of whiskey and the binding of their branches with tiny wires - perhaps, if they must be fed exclusively on whiskey, there is another reason besides the possibility of their bringing into our country a foreign insect that excludes them.
We were told that the captain's and officers' quarters were certified and not counted when the capacity of the ship was figured, so the ship seemed bigger than ever to us. Next we invaded the chart room, saw the device that tells the whereabouts of a coming typhoon, listened to the telephonic arrangement that proclaims the proximity of the buoy bells, watched the little indicator that makes a red line depicting the exact course of the ship on a circular chart, tried out the fire alarm system that instantly rings a bell if a high temperature is registered any place on the ship, from the bridal suite to the darkest corner of the hold. We set the fog whistle to blow at regular intervals. We were told that the searchlight could enable the pilot to discover objects about five miles out, and by the time the gyro compass and numerous other devices had been explained to us, we were ready to believe that the ship cost seven million dollars, and that five thousand dollars was the daily operating expense (two thousand dollars of which was spent for the one thousand gallons of oil).