“Ship ahoy!” we shouted to every man who came our way and noted his tonnage and cargo, his home port and destination.
How American! God bless us all!
Within forty-eight hours it seemed to me that everybody knew everybody else, except Lord and Lady Dorris, who were aboard, and the adoring group that surrounded them.
The big, wide-world thought-trust was well represented in the smoking-room. There were business men and boys just out of college, all expressing themselves in terms of profit and loss—the wealth of this or that man and how he got it, the effect of legislation upon business, and all that kind of thing. Thirty-five years ago such a company would have been talking of the last speeches of Conkling and Ingersoll or the last poems of Whittier and Tennyson.
There were many keynotes in the conversation. If one sat down with a book in the reading-room he would abandon it for the better display of human nature in the crowd around him. There were some twoscore women all talking at the same time, each drenching the other in the steady flow of her conversational hose. The plan of it all seemed to be very generous—everybody giving and nobody receiving anything. I used to think that among women talk was for display or relief, and whispering for the transfer of intelligence. Since I got married I know better: women have a sixth sense by which they can acquire knowledge without listening in a talk-fest. They miss nothing.
It was interesting to observe how the edges of the conversations impinged upon one another, like the circles made by a handful of pebbles flung from a bridge into water. Now and then some strong-voiced lady dropped a rock into the pool, and the spatter went to both shores. The spray advertised the thought-trusts of the women:
“I felt so sorry for poor Mabel! There wasn't a young man in the party.”
“It was a capital operation, but I pulled through.”
“Yes, I've wanted to go to Italy ever since I saw 'Romeo and Juliet.' Those Italians are wonderful lovers.”
“It was so ridiculous to be throwing her at his head, and she with a weak heart and only one lung!”