"'Don't ye make a mistake, Dooley,' says he. 'A boat's a boat. That's
all it is. Annything ye can get at sea ye can get betther on land. A
millyonaire is made as comfortable on an ocean liner as a longshoreman
on earth an' ye can play that comparison all th' way down to th'
steerage. Whin I read about this here floatin' palace I says to mesilf:
I'll add a little money and go acrost in oryental luxury. Whin I got
aboord th' decks were crowded with happy people worryin' about their
baggage an' wondherin' already whether th' inspector in New York wud get
onto th' false bottom iv th' thrunks. I give th' old an' enfeebled
English gintleman that carried me satchel a piece iv silver. He touched
his cap to me an' says Cue. Cue is th' English f'r I thank ye
kindly in Irish. He carrid me bag downstairs in th' ship. We kept goin'
down an' down till we touched bottom, thin we rambled through long lanes
neatly decorated with steel girders till we come to a dent in th' keel.
That was me boodoor. At laste part iv it was. There were two handsome
berths in it an' I had th' top wan. Th' lower wan was already occypied
be a gintleman that had started to feel onaisy on th' way down f'm
London an' was now prepared f'r th' worst. I left him to his grief an'
wint up on th' roof iv th' ship.
"'It was a gay scene f'r th' boat had started. Long rows iv ladies were
stretched on invalid chairs with shawls over thim, pretindin' to read
an' takin' deep smells at little green bottles. Three or four hundherd
men had begun to walk around th' ship with their hands folded behind
thim. A poker game between four rale poker players an' a man that didn't
know th' game but had sharp finger-nails was already started in th'
smokin'-room. About that time I begun to have a quare sinsation. I
haven't been able to find out yet what it was. I must ask Dock O'Leary.
I wasn't sea-sick, mind ye. I'm a good sailor. But I had a funny feelin'
in me forehead between me eyes. It wasn't a headache exactly but a kind
iv a sthrange sinsation like I used to have whin I was a boy an' thried
to look cross-eyed. I suppose it was th' strong light. I didn't have
anny aversion to food. Not at all. But somehow I didn't like th' smell
iv food. It was disagreeable to me an' it seemed to make th' place in me
head worse. Sivral times I wint to th' dinin'-room intindin' to jine th'
jovyal comp'ny there but quit at th' dure. It was very sthrange. I don't
know how to account f'r it. Very few people were sea-sick on th' v'yage,
but sivral hundherd who were injyin' paddlin' a spoon in a cup iv beef
tea on deck spoke iv havin' th' same sinsation. I didn't speak iv it to
th' ship's doctor. I'd as lave carry me ailments to a harness maker as
to a ship's doctor. But there it was, an' fr'm me pint iv view it was
th' most important ivint iv th' passage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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