Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/210

 two boys to go to their room, and wash their faces. Much to my surprise, they did it. In America, when a woman tells her child to do anything, he attempts to argue her out of the notion, and usually succeeds. The children on the ship are somewhat annoying; not because they do not mind well, but because they are left to themselves. Their mothers are generally members of the Sports Committee, and their nurses are flirting with members of the crew. There is one very noisy youngster who is rapidly driving me to distraction. She has a nurse, but I have not seen the nurse all day The mother of a ten-year-old boy on board says he does not know anything about money; that he can't tell a shilling from a penny. At home, a boy of that age would be packing a newspaper route, and know all about money. I particularly admired Captain Trask, of the "Sonoma," because he told me two of his sons were carrying newspaper routes. That's the way to bring up a boy in town; buy him a newspaper route by the time he is nine or ten years old, and let him learn who is good, and who is not Mr. Riley, who has not yet fallen overboard, although all of us have wished it on every shooting star since leaving Adelaide, believes he is the life of the ship, and a general favorite, although I believe I have never known anyone to be more generally disliked. He is always half-drunk, and thinks that is the proper thing on shipboard. There is a disagreeable smell about a steady drinker, and Mr. Riley has it in a very marked degree. I once heard him say to a modest, gentlemanly man with whom he was arguing: "You must confess that you admire a good fellow who spends his money more