Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/206

 to me on deck last night. "It is because colored socks do not show dirt, and can be worn until they are filthy. I wear white socks, and probably change them oftener than any other passenger on the ship, but I think I am a marked man because of my white socks. I often catch the other passengers looking at my feet in wonder." I asked him if he also wore a night-gown, instead of pajamas, and he said he did, whereupon we organized a club, as I also wear white socks and a night-gown. Pajamas do not seem enough of a change from pants and shirts, and I cannot sleep in them; and colored socks irritate my ankles On the ship, children are almost universally called kids, or kiddies, another form of bad English which Americans deplore. There are eighteen children on board, and the ship resembles a nursery. Even the stewards privately complain of the incessant racket. This morning most of the passengers shifted to the port side of the deck, but we remained on the starboard side, because all of the children went with the crowd. "You must be enjoying a quiet and pleasant day," the deck steward said to us. A good many of the passengers had their chairs shifted back to the starboard side, and I heard them grumbling about the noise; from which I am led to believe that if the passengers spoke their minds freely, a protest would go up to the captain about Mr. Riley, the Sports Committee, and the "kiddies." A passenger was telling today of a man he once knew in Melbourne who took thirty drinks of whisky a day. Finally, during an illness, the doctor advised him that he must be more temperate; that twenty drinks a day were enough. The man tried twenty drinks a day, but