She starts; she moves; she seems to feel the thrill of life along
her keel.
You are under way. You are finally committed to the great adventure.
The necessary good-bys have already been said. Those who in the
goodness of their hearts came to see you off have departed for
shore, leaving sundry suitable and unsuitable gifts behind. You
have examined your stateroom, with its hot and cold decorations,
its running stewardess, its all-night throb service, and its windows
overlooking the Hudson - a stateroom that seemed so large and
commodious until you put one small submissive steamer trunk and
two scared valises in it. You are tired, and yon white bed, with
the high mudguards on it, looks mighty good to you; but you feel
that you must go on deck to wave a fond farewell to the land you
love and the friends you are leaving behind.
You fight your way to the open through companionways full of
frenzied persons who are apparently trying to travel in every
direction at once. On the deck the illusion persists that it is
the dock that is moving and the ship that is standing still. All
about you your fellow passengers crowd the rails, waving and
shouting messages to the people on the dock; the people on the
dock wave back and shout answers. About every other person is
begging somebody to tell auntie to be sure to write. You gather
that auntie will be expected to write weekly, if not oftener.
As the slice of dark water between boat and dock widens, those who
are left behind begin running toward the pierhead in such numbers
that each wide, bright-lit door-opening in turn suggests a flittering
section of a moving-picture film. The only perfectly calm person
in sight is a gorgeous, gold-laced creature standing on the outermost
gunwale of the dock, wearing the kind of uniform that a rear admiral
of the Swiss navy would wear - if the Swiss had any navy - and holding
a speaking trumpet in his hand. This person is not excited, for
he sends thirty-odd-thousand-ton ships off to Europe at frequent
intervals, and so he is impressively and importantly blase about
it; but everybody else is excited. You find yourself rather that
way. You wave at persons you know and then at persons you do not
know.
You continue to wave until the man alongside you, who has spent
years of his life learning to imitate a siren whistle with his
face, suddenly twines his hands about his mouth and lets go a
terrific blast right in your ear. Something seems to warn you
that you are not going to care for this man.
