or the sword, but he put it on very doubtful ground when he
thought he was thereby falling into "the hand of the Lord" in some
special manner. For I am confident that bad air is the devil, and that
it is this "power of the air" of which he is "prince." And he has no
more impregnable stronghold than the cabin of a ferry-boat in winter. In
the cars one can brave public opinion and elude the brakeman's eye so as
to open something in his "Black Hole." But the cabin windows are
hermetically sealed and the doors jealously guarded by an unsleeping
dragon. On some of these boats they have an ingenious method of
intensifying the sickening odor by anointing the floors with a rancid
oil, which affords the tender stomach all the advantages of the famous
crossing of the English Channel.

The entire code of the cabin is still to be rescued from the
civilization of the cave-dwellers. The essence of politeness has been
shown to be self-sacrifice in small things. The average American is
naturally as unselfish a being as dwells upon the planet, but he often
appears to disadvantage beside far meaner races by reason of an insane
haste which tramples politeness under its feet. "After you, sir,"--a
phrase which contains in a nutshell the very kernel of all
courtesy,--puts the thing in a shape which is almost a physical
impossibility to the American temperament. Our fellow-citizen will go
ahead of you with the utmost gallantry, though it be to storm a Malakoff
or grapple with a mad dog; but to stand aside and let you get on or off
a ferry-boat before him is a strain upon his manners enough to dislocate
their every limb. Well, remembering that the passive mood comes after
the active in grammatical sequence, we will not despair of a development
of the passive virtues even in the "go-ahead" American. And then the law
of the cabin will no longer be mob-law, nor its motto, "Every man for
himself, and ---- take the ladies."

It is really ridiculous to see the uneasiness and prematureness of most
persons as the boat begins to approach the shore. Though conscious that
it will not bring the boat and the dock any nearer together, there is a
hunger of the eye to seize the latter from afar. Sometimes the movement
of an asphyxiated passenger for the door, or the momentary stoppage of
the boat in mid-stream, will bring half the cabin to its feet. It is the
same impulse which leads passengers, when waiting in the ferry-house, to
glue their faces to the ga