“I don't need that,” she protested. “It isn't cold and it isn't rainin', either. I tell you I don't need it, Hosy. Don't tuck me in any more. I feel as if I was goin' to France in a baby carriage, not a steamboat. And what are they passin' round those—those tin dippers for?”
“They may be useful later on,” I said, watching the seas leap and foam against the stone breakwater. “You'll probably understand later, Hephzy.”
She understood. The breakwater was scarcely passed when our boat, which had seemed so large and steady and substantial, began to manifest a desire to stand on both ends at once and to roll like a log in a rapid. The sun was shining brightly overhead, the verandas of the hotels along the beach were crowded with gaily dressed people, the surf fringing that beach was dotted with bathers, everything on shore wore a look of holiday and joy—and yet out here, on the edge of the Channel, there was anything but calm and anything but joy.
How that blessed boat did toss and rock and dip and leap and pitch! And how the spray began to fly as we pushed farther and farther from land! It came over the bows in sheets; it swept before the wind in showers, in torrents. Hephzy hastily removed her hat and thrust it beneath the tarpaulin. I turned up the collar of my steamer coat and slid as far down into that collar as I could.
“My soul!” exclaimed Hephzy, the salt water running down her face. “My soul and body!”
“I agree with you,” said I.
On we went, over the waves or through them. Our fellow-passengers curled up beneath their tarpaulins, smiled stoically or groaned dismally, according to their dispositions—or digestions. A huge wave—the upper third of it, at least—swept across the deck and spilled a gallon or two of cold water upon us. A sturdy, red-faced Englishman, sitting next me, grinned cheerfully and observed:
“Trickles down one's neck a bit, doesn't it, sir.”
I agreed that it did. Hephzy, huddled under the lee of my shoulder, sputtered.
“Trickles!” she whispered. “My heavens and earth! If this is a trickle then Noah's flood couldn't have been more than a splash. Trickles! There's a Niagara Falls back of both of my ears this minute.”