There has recently been discovered a strange malady which attacks travelers at sea. I find competitors in writing travel stuff have me on the hip in this regard. This new malady, in which I know the public must have a breathless interest, is so replete with possibilities from a pencil pusher's standpoint, I more than half suspect that some writers aren't playing fair.
I fear some of them are no more qualified from personal experience to write about it than I am, but they are banging ahead and writing about it anyway, just because it is a new, fresh subject, full of thrilling possibilities for the pen artist, and as for the artist who can draw pictures to illustrate it—honest you'd die laughing, there's so many funny things about it.
The ship's doctor, whom I've interviewed for data, advised me to cut it out; that, like everything new, the writers have already overworked it.
He told me they called it seasickness in the steerage, and mal de mer in first cabin, and that it hits first cabin harder than it does steerage.
I never was strong on fads. The beaten path for me!
I am also under contract to write about the folks I meet. Now there's a subject worth while,—folks. You'll strike them on shipboard. I'm pretty close to one chap so soon. He is on a business trip to China. He is from some place in Missouri—he's from Missouri all right.
I understand he has dealt largely in horses. It's his first trip to Japan and China, and he seems to cling to me, and I have much of his life's history. The first thing I noticed about him was his beautiful teeth—as fine a set of teeth as I ever saw in a man's mouth. The first meal after sailing he got up and left the table abruptly, and I missed him till the next meal, when again he left the table—seemed to be in trouble.
The next time I saw him was at dinner, and I was shocked! He had lost two teeth on one side and three on the other—upper teeth. It made a great difference in his personal appearance—but he seemed to enjoy that meal without any break.
After dinner, on deck, away from anyone else, I commiserated him on the loss of those teeth—felt well enough acquainted—you can make better time getting acquainted on shipboard than anywhere else.
I asked him why he had to sacrifice those teeth; that they looked like fine teeth. Was it really necessary to have them out? Hadn't he taken a chance in having the ship's doctor play dentist? And then he poured out his whole soul to me about those teeth.