“I suppose they can,” I answered. “You can see better with your spectacles than you can without them.”
“Humph! I can see better with two eyes than I can with one, as far as that goes. I don't believe they wear 'em for seein' at all. Take that man there,” pointing to a long, lank Canadian in a yellow ulster, whom the irreverent smoking-room had already christened “The Duke of Labrador.” “Look at him! He didn't wear a sign of one until this mornin'. If he needed it to see with he'd have worn it before, wouldn't he? Don't tell me! He wears it because he wants people to think he's a regular boarder at Windsor Castle. And he isn't; he comes from Toronto, and that's only a few miles from the United States. Ugh! You foolish thing!” as the “Duke of Labrador” strutted by our deck-chairs; “I suppose you think you're pretty, don't you? Well, you're not. You look for all the world like a lighthouse with one window in it and the lamp out.”
I laughed. “Hephzy,” said I, “every nation has its peculiarities and the monocle is an English national institution, like—well, like tea, for instance.”
“Institution! Don't talk to me about institutions! I know the institution I'd put HIM in.”
She didn't fancy the “Duke of Labrador.” Neither did she fancy tea at breakfast and coffee at dinner. But she learned to accept the first. Two sessions with the “Plutonia's” breakfast coffee completed her education.
“Bring me tea,” she said to our table steward on the third morning. “I've tried most every kind of coffee and lived through it, but I'm gettin' too old to keep on experimentin' with my health. Bring me tea and I'll try to forget what time it is.”
We had tea at breakfast, therefore, and tea at four in the afternoon. Hephzibah and I learned to take it with the rest. She watched her fellow-passengers, however, and as usual had something to say concerning their behavior.
“Did you hear that, Hosy?” she whispered, as we sat together in the “Lounge,” sipping tea and nibbling thin bread and butter and the inevitable plum cake. “Did you hear what that woman said about her husband?”
I had not heard, and said so.
“Well, judgin' by her actions, I thought her husband was lost and she was sure he had been washed overboard. 'Where is Edward?' she kept askin'. 'Poor Edward! What WILL he do? Where is he?' I was gettin' real anxious, and then it turned out that she was afraid that, if he didn't come soon, he'd miss his tea. My soul! Hosy, I've been thinkin' and do you know the conclusion I've come to?”