Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/123

 *man has very positive notions about everything, particularly about Americans, and the Doctor says he intends to talk the Chicago language to him after we go. "I didn't like to say anything rough while Miss Adelaide was at the table," the Doctor said, "but I'll be mad anyway, because of your going, and he'll hear from me." In addition to his liberal notions about punishing men who snore, Mr. A. "makes up" stories about Americans. He says, for example, that when he was in Chicago, the hotel bell-boy who guided him to his room took hold of his coat, looked at it critically, and said: "What funny clothes you Englishmen wear." The Doctor is certain no such thing ever happened, at Chicago or elsewhere, and proposes to say so to the hero of the incident The "Maunganui" is a large ship, nearly new, but instead of two men in my room I found three. The ship has two parlors, very large and fine, the floors covered with Turkish rugs, but its staterooms are very small, and most of them are provided with four beds; and extra beds are made in the dining-room. There are twice as many passengers on the ship as there should be; there are almost as many at the second sitting in the dining-saloon as at the first Very much to our surprise, Mr. A. came down to see us off, and, on hearing that I was to occupy a room with three others, said he wouldn't stand it; that there was a way of avoiding such disagreeable things, and that he always found it. The Doctor nudged me, and, when the row starts, this big talk will probably come up, also. Mr. A. says he has already spoken to the head waiter at the Grand, and given him notice that our places at his table must be