The three others in the bridge game were members of the British Food Commission. Britishers, I notice, are much slower at bridge than we are. They think a long while before they make a play; then they make the wrong play. I do the same thing with only half the expenditure of thought and time. _Wednesday, September 26. At Sea._ Captain Finch appeared at breakfast this morning. It was the first time he had honored us. His presence at table, I’m told, indicates that we are out of the danger zone. On board we have a doctor, a D.D., who intends to lecture in America on the war. He happened to be at our table in the lounge this afternoon. Some one asked him if he had visited the front. “Indeed, yes,” he said. “I was there less than a month ago. The British entertained me and showed me everything. Why, one day they were taking me through the front-line trenches and I asked how far we were from the German front line. ‘Hush, Doctor,’ said one of the officers. ‘The Germans can hear you talking now. They’re only twenty yards away.’” I asked him what part of the front he’d been on. He told me. It was exactly the same front I’d seen. But when I was there--and it was also less than a month ago--the depth of No Man’s Land was two hundred yards, and there weren’t any non-combatants batting round within sixty feet of a boche trench. No, nor a British trench either. I said as much right out loud, and I’m afraid I’ve spoiled his trip. But honest, Doc, somebody was kidding you or else your last name is Cook. _Thursday, September 27. At Sea._ The sea was calm, the day was fair. E’en Mal de Mer came up for air. The voyage is getting sort of tiresome to us Americans. For the British it’s not so bad. Their five meals per day break the monotony. They breakfast from nine to ten, lunch from one to two, tea from four to five, dine from seven to eight, and sup from eleven on. But we can’t stand that pace, and have to waste a lot of time reading. There is a ship library full of fairly good stuff, but by far the most interesting matter is to be found in a paper published on board every day. Its title is _The Ocean Times and the Atlantic Daily News_. It contains two pages of news, two pages of editorial causerie, one of them in French, and four pages of real hot stuff, such as “Softness and Grandeur. A Brief Appreciation of a Delightful Excursion in Norway”; “Chance Meetings. The Long Arm of Coincidence and the Charm of Surprise”; “The Introduction of Electric Tramways into Cape Town.” These essays and articles are boiler plate, as we journalists say, and we find them an excellent sedative.