E-text prepared by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Janet Blenkinship, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 24580-h.htm or 24580-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/5/8/24580/24580-h/24580-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/5/8/24580/24580-h.zip)
[Illustration: THE SPOTTER IS A "PERFECT DEAR," AND THAT IS HOW YOUR WIFE COMES TO LOSE TWELVE DRESSES AND A TWENTY-THOUSAND-DOLLAR NECKLACE AND HAVE HYSTERICS ON THE DOCK.
The spotter is "a perfect dear", and that is how your wife comes to lose twelve dresses and a twenty-thousand-dollar necklace and have hysterics on the dock _Frontispiece_
Small wonder that you hand a dollar to your sister and kiss the porter 14
I recognise the blonde divinity. Her eyes are closed, her hat on one ear, and she is wrapped like a mummy 18
Ah, confidences beside a life-boat on the upper deck! 26
Quite the nicest place on the whole ship is the smoke-room
Your cap goes flying overboard. * * * Your cigar is blown to shreds 38
There is a horrible fascination about a ship's concert, something hypnotic that draws you, very much against your word and will 44
"Ship-Bored" originally appeared in _Everybody's Magazine_.
Whatever the effect of "Ship-Bored" upon others, its publication has exerted a very definite effect upon me, or rather upon the character of my daily mail. Instead of letters the postman now leaves little packages containing pills which, according to the senders, will prevent the casting of bread upon the waters.
It is astonishing to learn how many sea-sick remedies there are. Looking at the bottles and the boxes piled, each morning by my breakfast plate, I sometimes wonder if there aren't as many remedies as sufferers.
But suppose there are? Why do people send the medicines to me? Why do perfect strangers assume that, because I have taken up the task of muck-raking the Atlantic Ocean, I am in need of antidotes for _mal de mer_? Even suppose that I do suffer thus at sea? Is it anybody else's business--or luncheon?
All great literary works are born of suffering. Stop the suffering and you stop the author. Yet people keep on sending pills to me--each pill an added insult if you choose to take it that way.