Walter agreed to furnish the money for preliminary expenses, and after many meetings I found myself booked for London. I went in the capacity of purse-holder, accompanied by Skillmore, and a skilled mechanic, who was our demonstrator. Mr. Leidman, like the little pig in the nursery rhyme, “stayed at home.”
This event happened nearly as quickly as I have written it. So sudden was it that I woke up one morning fully expecting to partake of a meagre breakfast, and walk to my odoriferous hole of an office; but found myself in the close, but comfortable surroundings of a berth on one of the small ocean liners. It was quite true. I had jumped suddenly from poverty to comfort, for Walter had given me a most generous allowance, and a small share in the enterprise.
This was in the year Thirty-Four. Muriel and I had lived thirteen years together without having been separated. We were now part of each other, and of our little family. She was very happy about the promised change in our fortunes, but she wept at our parting. We both saw things in the future that never came true. I thought that the world was mine for several months; then I came down.
CHAPTER XV
I would not describe London if I could. It has been done too often already, well and ill; and, truth to tell, I was still very young, and for the greater part of the time spent there, lived too much in a dream to be able to deal with the realities that surged around me.
My first trip across the ocean was quite uneventful. Never seasick for a single minute, I enjoyed excellent health; but this did not give me immunity from the symptoms of others. That any one fails to be seasick is to be wondered at, indeed, considering that seasickness is the first subject of conversation between passengers when they become acquainted. They speak so knowingly of the feelings, the symptoms, the effects and the causes. The clever ones prophesy who among the passenger list will be sick, and when they will be sick. Those who have been seasick talk feelingly of their experience, and go into such details that it is surprising that any one can maintain a gastric balance. A fair example of this was a conversation I overheard.
“Ever been across before?”
“No.”
“Then you do not know whether you will be seasick or not?”
“No, I don’t know. I am afraid I will.”