“No, thank you; I’m not going to take anything this morning.”
“Why not?” said Newman. “Why, I wouldn’t miss my coffee and strawberry jam for the world. Come along; it will ballast you and keep you from being light-headed.”
“No; I’m not hungry. You can have my share of rattan coffee and strawjuice jam this morning. I never eat without an appetite.”
“Nor I,” answered Newman, “but I always eat. It doesn’t matter what you eat; it’s how it tastes. I have an empty place inside of me the size of the United States. This constant motion of the ship doesn’t give your appetite any rest. See you later. Wish you’d come.”
Pretty soon some one came stumbling along the narrow passageway and exclaimed as he struck his head or something against a partition:
“Ouch! What to —ll did I get out of that infernal bed for? I wish the Lord had made the waves some other shape. I’d rather get out and walk home than ride up every derned single wave in the ocean and then slide back again. I always supposed that a boat went forward instead of upward and downward and sideways. Confound the boat!—I wish ’twould go to the bottom. ’Twould serve the miserly Fruit Company right for putting people in such a drifting rat-trap. I wish I were home. Home is good enough for me. Whoo-oop!”
This periodic whooping reminded me how undignified people will act in the most conspicuous places and inopportune moments, and how often such unseemly actions become contagious and spread like laughter.
The man had evidently rushed or staggered out to the outer door as he uttered the last whoop. After a short session of silent thought, I heard him walk back to his stateroom mumbling between his teeth:
“The yellow fever is bad enough, but seasickness is a deuced sight worse. The next time I want to see a canal I’ll look at the Chicago Drainage Canal. When I want a change of climate I’ll stay in Chicago where it’s always changing, and where it sometimes changes for the better.”
I took an ounce of dry sherry at nine-thirty and again at ten, and soon after arose to give my bones a needed rest. After some shivering from the unaccustomed cold, some unintentional collisions and gyrations about the room, and some expressions of opinion about the luxury and healthfulness of sea voyages, followed now and then by a short recess in my bunk in order to press my bruised scalp into shape and allow the whirl in my head to subside, I succeeded at last in getting my winter flannels and heavy suit out of my trunk and on me. As the result of the night’s wakefulness and the morning’s exercise of bracing and holding on while dressing, I actually felt a desire to eat, and resolved to do it before I changed my mind.