Page:In a Steamer Chair and Other Stories.djvu/233

Rh steamers. He was connected with commercial houses on both sides of the ocean; selling in America for an English house, and buying in England for an American establishment. I presume it was his experiences in selling goods that led to his terrible habits of drinking. I understood from him that out West, if you are selling goods you have to do a great deal of treating, and every time you treat an other man to a glass of wine, or a whisky cocktail, you have, of course, to drink with him. But this has nothing to do with Plodkins' story.

On an Atlantic liner, when there is a large list of passengers, especially of English passengers, it is difficult to get a convenient hour in the morning at which to take a bath. This being the case, the purser usually takes down the names of applicants and assigns each a particular hour. Your hour may be, say seven o'clock in the morning. The next man comes on at half-past seven, and the third man at eight, and so on. The bedroom steward raps at your door when the proper time arrives, and in forms you that the bath is ready. You wrap a dressing-gown or a cloak around you, and go along the silent corridors to the bath-room, coming back, generally before your half hour is up, like a giant refreshed.

Plodkins' bath hour was seven o'clock in the