He says this is his last trip on this boat. As soon as we land he's going down to Venezuela where he has ten millions of hoarded treasure buried in a swamp. He's going to dig it up and buy the whole of some Island out in the Pacific Ocean and settle down as a King and he's promised if I ever visit him to give me a reception worthy of an Emperor. There is only one trouble, he says, about it all. With all his millions buried in Venezuela he hasn't got enough money with him to pay his fare, but I fixed that. I've lent him the two gold pounds papa gave me, which he says, will help him out with what he hopes to get for looking after the chairs—most people give him fifty dollars, he says, for doing that, and there are six hundred passengers on board, which makes $30,000. I think that's a good deal of money, but he says it's only a bagatelle for a man who wants to go to Venezuela. He's going to pay me back my two pounds after he's dug up his money in Venezuela, and he told me not to say anything to dad about it but surprise him next winter when I get the money back with a thousand pounds interest besides.
There's one nice thing about travelling at sea. Coming this way we gain a half an hour everyday. That is, at this time to-morrow morning it will be half an hour later and that's first rate when you wake up on a rough morning at eight o'clock and find out that it isn't eight o'clock at all, but half past, and you can get your breakfast right away. The idea of it is that travelling East the sun goes down earlier every night and of course it always sets on time wherever you are and you've got to fix your watch according to it. Chesterfield knows a man who kept on going around and around the world until he'd shoved Christmas forward six months, and didn't realize what had happened until he was wakened up by the boys celebrating the Fourth of July. It sounds like a queer story, but Chesterfield says it's true, and the way ships' time is arranged it seems to prove it. It takes a trip all the way round the world to knock off a day though, so it's not as easy a thing to upset the calendar as you'd think. Chesterfield says that if a man could live long enough to go around the world three thousand six hundred and fifty times going west he'd be ten years younger than his own twin brother at the end of that time. I asked dad if that was so and he said he guessed it was, but he really didn't know and to find out he put the question to a very extinguished editor of a Brooklyn paper who is on board and he said of course it was, that he knew a man who had done it. He said that the man was an editor of a Philadelphia paper and that that was why that particular paper was ten years behind the times. Dad laughed at this, and so did I, though I don't know why. Maybe it was a joke—though the extinguished Brooklyn editor said it very solemnly.
We expect to come in sight of land to-morrow and I must say I'm glad of it. The sea is all very fine, but the rough weather you're apt to get makes what you eat disagree with you and I want to get some place where you can eat a dinner and enjoy thinking about it afterwards.
As soon as we get to London I'll write again and tell you all about everything.
Yours ever,
Bob.
P.S. Chesterfield says he thinks Sandboys would make a good Prime Minister for his new Kingdom in the Pacific. He says he'll give him ten dollars a week and Saturdays off if he'll do his Prime Ministering for him. You might speak to Sandboys about it.
[THE SOAPY SEA.]
When first beside the turquoise sea
Stood Mabel, fair and sweet,
And saw the billows breaking free
Like snow-drifts at her feet,
She murmured, "Do these soapsuds leap
And roll from morn till night,
Way up the shore, to wash and keep,
It always silver white?"