most of the boats we saw were tied
up to the bank, waiting for the millennium. We saw some Russian boats
waiting for the war to blow over and as we passed them every Russian on
board looked scared, as though we were Japs that were going to fire a
torpedo under them, or throw a bomb on deck, and when our boat got by
the Russian boat, the crew was called to prayers, to thank the Lord, or
whoever it is that the Russians thank, because they had escaped a dire
peril. I guess the Russians are all in, and that those who have not gone
to the front are shaking hands with themselves, and waiting for the dove
of peace to alight on their guns. The Suez canal probably pays, and no
wonder, cause they charge what they please to boats that go through, and
if they don't pay all they have to do is to stay out, and go around a
few thousand miles. It is like a ferry across a little stream out west,
where there is no other way to cross, except to wade or go around, and
the old ferryman sizes up the wagon load that wants to cross, and takes
all they have got loose, and then the travelers are ahead of the game,
cause if they didn't cross the stream they would have to camp on the
bank until the stream dried up. Some day an earthquake will split that
desert wide open and the water in the Suez canal will soak into the
sand and the steamboats will lay in the mud, and be covered with a sand
storm, and future ages will be discovering full rigged ships down deep
on the desert. Dad says we better sell our stock in the canal and buy
air ship stock. And talk about business, there is more tonnage goes
through the Soo canal, between Michigan and Canada than goes through the
Suez and we don't howl about it very much.

Well, sir, I have studied Gibraltar in my geography, and read about
it in the papers, and seen its pictures in advertisements, but never
realized what a big thing it was. Now, who ever thought of putting
that enormous rock right there on that prairie, but God. I suppose the
English, when they saw that rock, thought the good Lord had put it there
for the English to drill holes in, for guns, and when the Lord was
busy somewhere else, the English smoughed the rock away from Spain, by
playing a game with loaded dice, and when England got it, that country
decided to arm it like a train robber, and hold up the other nations of
the earth. When a vessel passes that rock it has to hold up its hands
and salute the British flag, or get a mess of hardwa