This ‘Oceana’ is a stately big ship, luxuriously appointed.  She has spacious promenade decks.  Large rooms; a surpassingly comfortable ship.  The officers’ library is well selected; a ship’s library is not usually that . . . .  For meals, the bugle call, man-of-war fashion; a pleasant change from the terrible gong . . . .  Three big cats—­very friendly loafers; they wander all over the ship; the white one follows the chief steward around like a dog.  There is also a basket of kittens.  One of these cats goes ashore, in port, in England, Australia, and India, to see how his various families are getting along, and is seen no more till the ship is ready to sail.  No one knows how he finds out the sailing date, but no doubt he comes down to the dock every day and takes a look, and when he sees baggage and passengers flocking in, recognizes that it is time to get aboard.  This is what the sailors believe.  The Chief Engineer has been in the China and India trade thirty three years, and has had but three Christmases at home in that time . . . .  Conversational items at dinner, “Mocha! sold all over the world!  It is not true.  In fact, very few foreigners except the Emperor of Russia have ever seen a grain of it, or ever will, while they live.”  Another man said:  “There is no sale in Australia for Australian wine.  But it goes to France and comes back with a French label on it, and then they buy it.”  I have heard that the most of the French-labeled claret in New York is made in California.  And I remember what Professor S. told me once about Veuve Cliquot—­if that was the wine, and I think it was.  He was the guest of a great wine merchant whose town was quite near that vineyard, and this merchant asked him if very much V. C. was drunk in America.

“Oh, yes,” said S., “a great abundance of it.”

“Is it easy to be had?”

“Oh, yes—­easy as water.  All first and second-class hotels have it.”

“What do you pay for it?”

“It depends on the style of the hotel—­from fifteen to twenty-five francs a bottle.”

“Oh, fortunate country!  Why, it’s worth 100 francs right here on the ground.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Do you mean that we are drinking a bogus Veuve-Cliquot over there?”

“Yes—­and there was never a bottle of the genuine in America since Columbus’s time.  That wine all comes from a little bit of a patch of ground which isn’t big enough to raise many bottles; and all of it that is produced goes every year to one person—­the Emperor of Russia.  He takes the whole crop in advance, be it big or little.”