Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/128

 corner in Chicago, vigorously puffing a big cigar. A good man approached him, and said:

"Do you realize the waste of smoking? How many cigars do you smoke a day?"

The smoker estimated the number at fifteen, and said he had been smoking at least twenty years.

"Had you saved that money," the good man said, "you might have owned that sky-scraper," pointing to a big building across the street.

"Do you smoke?" the smoker asked the good man.

"Certainly not," was the indignant answer.

"Do you own that sky-scraper?"

"No."

"Well," replied the smoker, puffing complacently on his cigar, "I do."

—This has been as fine a day as I have ever experienced on a ship. As a rule, the weather is better far out at sea than near land. Yesterday the passengers were confined to their rooms, and everywhere one might hear them trying to get rid of that last meal, but today they are all on deck. It is a polite and agreeable company, and the ship is fine, but I still dislike the sea. I don't care much for close contact with a lot of people, however polite and agreeable they may be. It is pleasant enough to be in a crowd for an hour or two, and note human characteristics, but four or five days of it is too much From the time you start on a trip until you return, you have the same things to eat. Bills of fare on ships are exactly alike,