Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/194

 because of the small attendance. "We have worked hard to provide amusement," they said, "and almost no one is dancing." It has probably never occurred to the members of the Sports Committee that they are a nuisance rather than a blessing. It would be very much pleasanter on board if a Gay Time had never been thought of. I do not care to dance; nor do I care to have members of the Sports Committee urge me to dance. If I care to play quoits, or any other of the deck games, I do not need a Sports Committee to urge me. The members of the Sports Committee think it an outrage that Adelaide does not dance, and look at me reproachfully. I tell them I had nothing to do with it; that her parents are church members, and do not believe in dancing. This also greatly astonishes them. It wouldn't surprise me if the members of the Sports Committee did not finally get into trouble with some of the other passengers who want to be let alone. I hear a good deal of grumbling in the smoking-room from men who are being constantly urged to dance, take part in the concert, play skittles, or quoits, or deck billiards, or sea croquet. The members of the Sports Committee remind me of five or six men who decide that a town needs another lodge, and bore all the other citizens to join. Wherever you go, on land or sea, you find impudent men who urge others to do things there is no necessity for doing. Our pastor, the tall clergyman heretofore mentioned, is far more considerate of us than members of the Sports Committee. Sunday morning he sends a steward about the deck tolling a gong, to give notice that religious services will shortly be held in the music-room; but those who do