course, our
captain was at the head of the table, the purser at the foot of it. A
small company, but small companies are pleasantest.

No racks upon the table; the sky cloudless, the sun brilliant, the blue
sea scarcely ruffled; then what had become of the four married couples,
the three bachelors, and the active and obliging doctor from the rural
districts of Pennsylvania?--for all these were on deck when we
sailed down New York harbor. This is the explanation. I quote from my
note-book:

Thursday, 3.30 P.M. Under way, passing the Battery. The large
party, of four married couples, three bachelors, and a cheery,
exhilarating doctor from the wilds of Pennsylvania, are evidently
traveling together. All but the doctor grouped in camp-chairs on
deck.

Passing principal fort. The doctor is one of those people who has
an infallible preventive of seasickness; is flitting from friend to
friend administering it and saying, "Don't you be afraid; I know
this medicine; absolutely infallible; prepared under my own
supervision." Takes a dose himself, intrepidly.

4.15 P.M. Two of those ladies have struck their colors,
notwithstanding the "infallible." They have gone below. The other
two begin to show distress.

5 P.M. Exit one husband and one bachelor. These still had their
infallible in cargo when they started, but arrived at the
companionway without it.

5.10. Lady No. 3, two bachelors, and one married man have gone
below with their own opinion of the infallible.

5.20. Passing Quarantine Hulk. The infallible has done the
business for all the party except the Scotchman's wife and the
author of that formidable remedy.

Nearing the Light-Ship. Exit the Scotchman's wife, head drooped on
stewardess's shoulder.

Entering the open sea. Exit doctor!

The rout seems permanent; hence the smallness of the company at table
since the voyage began. Our captain is a grave, handsome Hercules of
thirty-five, with a brown hand of such majestic size that one cannot
eat for admiring it and wondering if a single kid or calf could furnish
material for gloving it.

Conversation not general; drones along between couples. One catches a
sentence here and there. Like this, from Bermudian of thirteen years'
absence: "It is the nature of women to ask trivial, irrelevant, and
pursuing questions--questions that