Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/327

Rh with almost as much dismay as those who were never to see each other again.

The soft, silver shimmer of the early harvest moon above them recalled with added appreciation of the final hours that the voyage and the vacation were ending together; so the whole ship's company lingered the more longingly over that last evening on the open sea, as the great ship bore them on swiftly, steadily, to America.

Towards nine, even the few more cautious women who were packing up well in advance, and those who were already making out their customs declarations, or writing their "bread and butter" letters to their hosts in England, came on deck at last. And in the smoking-room the men were closing out the selling of their pool upon the last day's run of the ship before she would stand off Sandy Hook to await the pilot.

"Five hundred shillings? Thank you! Do I hear five hundred and fifty? Remember, gentlemen, that any accident, however trivial, 299