It will record the sad contrast between my start from my native land, gaily sailing out of the Golden Gate, a de luxe first-class passenger, and winding up my joy-ride around the world by coming through Hell Gate steerage, barely escaping being condemned as a criminal and executed on the high seas, chucked overboard and fed to the sharks.
The lights and shadows of this wicked world are something fierce.
I am glad I made good my promise to try to write a little poetry before I came to this letter. I would surely never try to put it over in this one—it would be too great a strain.
Coming through Hell Gate steerage—
The next line might have to end with "peerage," and steerage and peerage don't mix worth a cent.
My first errand upon arrival in London was to lay in a stock of dress shirts.
But I didn't need any dress shirts coming across the Atlantic.
Indeed I didn't. What I needed was a good stout hickory shirt—a pair of overalls and double-bitted axe.
I don't suppose a writer of travel stuff on a debonair trip around the world ever had so much trouble as I have had the last eight days.
As I have already explained in letter XXVII, I held an order for a first-class passage on any American or British ship I might choose from England to New York.