Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/12

 length will have amounted to the day we dropped. In traveling eastward, you set your watch forward every day, and, on completion of your journey around the world, you will have gained a day Few young people travel; only the old or middle-aged seem able to afford it, while only the young are able to enjoy it. Adelaide, my niece, is the only youngster on the ship, and, although she never saw the sea until this trip, she is thoroughly enjoying it. She was ill in a quiet, ladylike way two or three days, but now she has forgotten all about the motion, and dreads to leave the "Sonoma" at Sydney. The stewardess calls her "dear," but invariably refers to me as "Mr. Works." I am trying to get even by inventing a new name for the stewardess every time I speak to her. Her name is Mrs. Coombs, but I began by calling her Mrs. Ashton, and followed it with Mrs. Bullard, Mrs. Comstock, Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Everett, and on down the alphabet until I now call her Mrs. Wheeler. James, the room steward, and George, our dining-room steward, know my name, but to the stewardess I am always Mr. Works. She is an American, but most of the crew are English, or Australians, outside the captain and his chief officers. It is ship gossip that the first officer is a very able man, but so ill-natured that he has never been given a ship, although an older man than the captain. It is important to understand your trade, but if you hope to get into fast company, you must also be polite.

Among the passengers is a life insurance man named Adams, en route to Australia to protest because of unfriendly legislation. His wife has been seasick almost