One of our young field-service men spoiled the forenoon poker game with a lecture on how to catch sharks. His remarkable idea is to put beefsteak on a stout copper wire and troll with it. He has evidently been very intimate with this family of fish, and he says they are simply crazy about beefsteak. Personally, I have no desire to catch sharks. There are plenty aboard. But I do wish he had not got to the most interesting part of his theory at the moment the dealer slipped me four sixes before the draw. Everybody was too busy listening to stay.
We have discovered that the man behind the gun in the fumoir bears a striking resemblance to Von Hindenburg, but no one has been found who will tell him so.
There was a track meet this afternoon, and the author of this diary was appointed referee. But the first event, a wheelbarrow race, was so exciting that he feared for his weak heart and resigned in favor of our general. There didn’t seem to be much else to the meet but ju-jutsu, the sport in which skill is supposed to triumph over brawn. I noticed that a two-hundred-and-thirty-pound man was the winner.
We are in that old zone, and the second table’s dinner hour has been advanced to half past six so that there need be no lights in the dining-room. Also, we are ordered not to smoke, not even to light a match, on deck after dark. The fumoir will be running for the last time, but the port-holes in it will all be sealed, meaning that after thirty-five smokers have done their best for a few hours the atmosphere will be intolerable. We can stay on deck smokeless, or we can try to exist in the airless fumoir, or we can go to bed in the dark and wish we were sleepy. And the worst is yet to come.
Wednesday, August 15.
The rules for to-night and to-morrow night provide for the closing of our old friend, the fumoir, at seven o’clock, and that witching hour is on you long before you expect it, for they jump the clock fifteen minutes ahead every time it’s noon or midnight. The ship will not be lit up. The passengers may, if they do their shopping early.
There was another life-boat “drill” this afternoon. Every one was required to stand in front of his canoe and await the arrival of Svengali. When that gent appeared, he called the roll. As soon as you said “Here” or “Present,” your part of the “drill” was over. When the time comes I must do my drifting under an alias, as Svengali insists on designating me as Monsieur Gardnierre. But No. 12 is at least honored with two second-class ladies. Many a poor devil on the ship is assigned to a life-boat that is strictly stag.
The Gentleman from Louisiana to-day sprang this one:
“You know when I part my hair in the middle I look just like a girl. Well, sir, during the Mardi Gras, two years ago, I put on a page’s costume and parted my hair in the middle. And you know girls under a certain age must go home at nine o’clock in the evening. Well, sir, a policeman accosted me and told me I had to go home. I gave him the bawling out of his life. And maybe you think he wasn’t surprised!”
Maybe I do think so.