suits.

Even the ship is making ready for the shore. Hatches are off, busy
donkey-engines are hustling mail-bags up from dark recesses within,
stewards are smiling as they rush about with trunks and rolls of rugs.

"I'm Boots, sir. Don't forget Boots, sir."

Ah, no, good Boots! Thrice welcome, Boots! And here's thy toll, already
set aside, like all the other tips, in envelopes.

Land ho!

The world is blithe and gay--except for one depressing thought. The
nearer you get to the New York custom-house, the heavier becomes the
load of luggage on your mind. Dresses, hats, wraps, lingerie, so gaily
bought in Paris, lie withering like Dead Sea fruit in the forlorn cold
storage of furiously labelled wardrobe trunks.

"_Must_ I declare that Paris motor-coat? It never fitted, and it's
fairly worn to shreds!"

"Yes, dear, everything. And sh-h! There are spotters on the ships, you
know."

The United States custom-house spotter ought to look like a detective,
but he doesn't. Instead of playing Foxy Quiller, he plays bridge, and
probably with you. He adores the ladies--the dear ladies, God bless 'em!
For it is the ladies whom the spotter mostly spots: the pretty ladies
with big state-rooms and big trunks and big hats; the pretty ladies with
the little maids and little evening gowns and little pearls. The spotter
has to be the sort of man these ladies like, or else the Government will
change his spots. In short, he is a perfect dear! So when, at bridge, he
makes the coy confession that he is taking French silk stockings over to
his sister and wonders if he'll "have trouble on the pier," your wife
tells him just what she is doing. ("One can't mistake a gentleman!") She
tells him that she's going into her state-room to sew some New York
labels into Paris gowns and hats--and that is how she comes to lose
twelve dresses and a twenty-thousand-dollar necklace, and have
hysterics on the dock, and how she never sends that dinner invitation to
him at the club in Forty-fourth Street.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHIP-BORED***

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