at abruptly, as it appeared to me, and I
took a stroll on deck by myself. I did not feel very comfortable. I am
what I call a moderate sailor. I do not go to excess in either
direction. On ordinary occasions, I can swagger about and smoke my pipe,
and lie about my Channel experiences with the best of them. But when
there is what the captain calls "a bit of a sea on," I feel sad, and try
to get away from the smell of the engines and the proximity of people who
smoke green cigars.

There was a man smoking a peculiarly mellow and unctuous cigar on deck
when I got there. I don't believe he smoked it because he enjoyed it.
He did not look as if he enjoyed it. I believe he smoked it merely to
show how well he was feeling, and to irritate people who were not feeling
very well.

There is something very blatantly offensive about the man who feels well
on board a boat.

I am very objectionable myself, I know, when I am feeling all right. It
is not enough for me that I am not ill. I want everybody to see that I
am not ill. It seems to me that I am wasting myself if I don't let every
human being in the vessel know that I am not ill. I cannot sit still and
be thankful, like you'd imagine a sensible man would. I walk about the
ship--smoking, of course--and look at people who are not well with mild
but pitying surprise, as if I wondered what it was like and how they did
it. It is very foolish of me, I know, but I cannot help it. I suppose
it is the human nature that exists in even the best of us that makes us
act like this.

I could not get away from this man's cigar; or when I did, I came within
range of the perfume from the engine-room, and felt I wanted to go back
to the cigar. There seemed to be no neutral ground between the two.

If it had not been that I had paid for saloon, I should have gone fore.
It was much fresher there, and I should have been much happier there
altogether. But I was not going to pay for first-class and then ride
third--that was not business. No, I would stick to the swagger part of
the ship, and feel aristocratic and sick.

A mate, or a boatswain, or an admiral, or one of those sort of people--I
could not be sure, in the darkness, which it was--came up to me as I was
leaning with my head against the paddle-box, and asked me what I thought
of the ship. He said she was a new boat, and that this was her first
voyage.

I said I hoped she would get a bit steadier as she grew older.