Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/160

 hotel-dining room here, we are always given ice-water; the waiters have heard that Americans like it.

—I celebrated my arrival in Adelaide with a slight illness, and the hotel people took quite an interest in me. The manager sent his regards, and wanted to know how I was, and when I went to the bath-room I usually met the maid, who spoke to me by name, and hoped I was better. Hotel servants here always know the names of guests. Adelaide took very good care of me, assisted by the maid on our floor. I told them that if they looked after me as faithfully as Mr. Adams looked after his wife on the "Sonoma," I should feel satisfied. Mr. Adams was an honor to his sex; his wife was ill from the time she left Honolulu until her arrival in Sydney, and during all that time Mr. Adams was a marvel of devotion; even the women said he should really take a little rest. But he would never leave his wife's side except when the women went down to sit with her; and even then, he walked about the decks in an obscure place, and didn't seem to be longing for pleasure or company. And Mr. Adams was no amateur husband; he told me he had been married before. There was something about Mr. Adams which convinced me that, had opportunity presented, he could have played a stiff game of cards in the smoking-room, and bluffed his competitors to a standstill, but with a sick wife on his hands he was gentleness itself. He didn't propose to be talked about by the women on board, and I think he was the