practical methods and promptly at nine every evening, when his complexion had acquired a rich magenta tint, he would be carried below by two accommodating stewards and put—­no, not put, decanted—­would be decanted gently into bed.  If anything had happened to the port-light of that ship, we could have stationed him forward in the bows with his face looming over the rail and been well within the maritime regulations—­his face had a brilliancy which even the darkness of the night could not dim; and if the other light had gone out of commission, we could have impressed the aid of the bilious Armenian lady who was sick every minute and very sick for some minutes, for she was always of a glassy green color.

We learned to wait regularly for the ceremony of seeing Sir Monocle and his load toted off to bed at nine o’clock every night, just as we learned to linger in the offing and watch the nimble knife-work when the prize invalid of the ship’s roster had cornered a fresh victim.  The prize invalid, it is hardly worth while to state, was of the opposite sex.  So many things ailed her—­by her own confession —­that you wondered how they all found room on the premises at the same time.  Her favorite evening employment was to engage another woman in conversation—­preferably another invalid—­and by honeyed words and congenial confidences, to lead the unsuspecting prey on and on, until she had her trapped, and then to turn on her suddenly and ridicule the other woman’s puny symptoms and tell her she didn’t even know the rudiments of being ill and snap her up sharply when she tried to answer back.  And then she would deliver a final sting and go away without waiting to bury her dead.  The poison was in the postscript—­it nearly always is with that type of female.  But afterward she would justify herself by saying people must excuse her manner—­she didn’t mean anything by it; it was just her way, and they must remember that she suffered constantly.  Some day when I have time, I shall make that lady the topic of a popular song.  I have already fabricated the refrain:  Her heart was in the right place, lads, but she had a floating kidney!

Arrives a day when you develop a growing distaste for the company of your kind, or in fact, any kind.  ’Tis a day when the sea, grown frisky, kicks up its nimble heels and tosses its frothy mane.  A cigar tastes wrong then and the mere sight of so many meat pies and so many German salads at the entrance to the dining salon gives one acute displeasure.  By these signs you know that you are on the verge of being taken down with climate fever, which, as I set forth many pages agone, is a malady peculiar to the watery deep, and by green travelers is frequently mistaken for seasickness, which indeed it does resemble in certain respects.  I may say that I had one touch of climate fever going over and a succession of touches coming back.