"Say, party, I can't tell you how I felt to see little old New York slip away in the distance. That old town is a great old burg, and as I was going to kick into some other country that I wasn't hep to I naturally felt kind of bumly.
"We went busting by the Statue of Liberty and then on out past the Hook, and, take it from me, if that steward hadn't come across with the refreshments just at that moment I would have burst into tears. As it was I could only address Wilbur in a few terse adjectives, and tell him what I thought of a person that would pull off such a low down deal on an unsuspecting fluff. I want to state right now that though I was but a bride I called him good and proper.
"The next morning we went down to breakfast. Say, they have about ten meals a day on one of these scows and I've gained about twenty pounds already. There was a bunch of show people going over on the same boat and Wilbur and I naturally cottoned to them. We didn't do a thing all day but sit on the deck and read, or walk around or sing in the music room. Sure, they got a real live music room on board, as well as a conservatory, a gym and an elevator.
"I don't know whether I plucked a quince or not. Wilbur kept insisting that I go to the table every time they turned in an alarm, and I was sorta holding off, 'cause I didn't want to lance the poor boy for all his change on the way over, but he kept insisting that I eat and acted so peevish when I didn't that I thought, well, if he wants to spend his money all right, so I eat so much that I couldn't have crowded any more in me with a hypo. Come to find out the food was included in the passage and we had to pay for it whether we ate it or not. That's why I am wondering if I plucked a quince. Wilbur was never tight before we were wed, and you can take it from me that if he starts to hold out or draw down now there is going to be fine large doings in the Wilbur family from the female delegation.
"Wilbur was in the smoking room the other evening and got to talking with what he thought were a couple of boobs, but come to find out they were wise guys. After sipping up a couple of slow ones, the guys propose a little poker game. Wilbur and two other boobs fall for the bunk and they open up. Wilbur, after losing a little junk, gives the wise guys the office that he's jerry to the fact that they are playing with newspaper, and lets them know that if he ain't in on the frame-up he'll belch.
"These two boobs are dirty with the evergreen, and Wilbur's got the wise guys so leary for fear he will tip his mitt and they naturally slip him a big one every time they get a chance. Wilbur gets his money back and everything is even all around, but the wise guys are the only ones who want to lay down.
"Wilbur hands them a game of cheerful chatter and they don't dare quit. Foxy Wilbur sits there until 3 a.m., raking in their money, and incidentally corrals some that belongs to the wealthy wops. In the meantime I am doing the earnest conversation act with an old dowager that I met the second day out and she is telling me about her country home in Devonshire or some other one of these shire things. She sorta took a fancy to me and insisted that Wilbur and I should run out there for a week-end. Which end of the week she didn't say. But I guess if we go Sunday we are safe. To hear this old dame tell it, she must own about nine million acres up in the country, and her husband has all kinds of wild animals—lions, tigers, elephants and all that truck that are trained to be shot. She called it a shooting lodge. Probably a branch of the Elks. This old party ceases her harangue and I beat it to the air-felt and am pounding my ear when Wilbur kicks in with a souse on.
"I come out of the hay and am getting ready to call him to a fare-you-well when he flashes his bundle. My anger vanished in a moment and I just reach out and cop the coin and roll over and goes to sleep. Wilbur sleeps on the floor until I took compassion on him and rolled him on the lounge. Talk about your wifely devotion, what! I count the roll in the morning before I slip it to the purser for safekeeping and it assayed $1,245, which is not half bad for a night's work.
"The wise guys come around and offer Wilbur $100 a night to stay out of the smoking room and he won't do it, but tells them if he catches them playing another game during the trip he will turn loose the long Rebel yell. Now the two wise guys are sitting on deck reading 'The Lives of the Saints' and making faces at Wilbur every time he goes romping by. Ain't Wilbur the saucy thing?
"The last night on board we gave a concert for the benefit of the Seamen's Fund, or something like that, and I claim that it was a classy affair. I appeared, and without any brag or ostentation I can truthfully say that I scored a great personal triumph. It wasn't so much what I did, but the winsome manner in which I did it. Get that? Wilbur was the manager of the affair and didn't shake down a cent.