Surely that table covered with a dirty sheet instead of a tablecloth is not prepared for our repast?
Why, this stale loaf must have been on board quite a week.
It has evidently made several passages backwards and forwards in company with this extremely remarkable sample of butter.
Why does this coffee the Steward has just brought us look like ink and sawdust, and taste like something perplexing?
The Frenchman, who has been expecting déjeuner à la fourchette, is surveying with astonishment the dish of mutton-chops they have set down before him.
It is a great pity that they are all two inches thick, and are underdone when cut.
I wonder whether he is thinking, as I am, of the clean, fresh, and trim restaurant table, the excellent café au laít, petits-pains, Normandy butter, and other “foreign kickshaws,” that he has just left behind him in France.
Though he has had to pay three shillings for his hot breakfast, he has informed me that he will wait till he arrives, and take “le lunch” on shore.
I wonder whether he is aware that, if he makes this meal at the typical Refreshment-Room, he will have to content himself with stale sponge-cakes, the day-before-yesterday’s buns, and small tins of lemon-drops.
But let us get out of the Cabin. I certainly prefer the deck of an excellent steamer to the arrangements made for providing one with breakfast down below.