In addition to the parrots and hundreds of other tropical birds, the monkeys, the marmosets and the leopards that the passengers in afterwards to be regretted moments of enthusiasm acquired, the super-alimentated German indulged himself to the extent of a boa constrictor. The first time he went down to feed it, the playful little creature wound itself about his waist in several coils and was beginning to constrict in the most successful fashion, when the man’s shrieks brought four sailors to the rescue. It took the strength of all of them to untie the knot, so to speak, and had the reptile been able to find anything around which to twist its tail there would have been for the rest of the voyage a vacant seat opposite me at table. Oh, yes, we had some very agreeable fellow passengers. It was the parrots, I think, that first caused dissension among them. To get loose was to get mixed, and it was a wise owner who knew his own bird, although, unfortunately for the ship’s peace, many thought they did. There were claims and counterclaims. “My parrot had a tail,” exclaimed one woman with angry, flashing eyes to another. “This beastly thing has just bitten my thumb,” declared a second; “my own bird never bites. They have made a mistake and I shall complain about it to the company.” Still another aggrieved one, who had views different from those of the committee chosen to draw up certain resolutions, let it be known that if they did not end by regarding the matter from her point of view she would write to the company saying that the ship was dirty and that the officers had been drinking heavily from beginning to end, which was not only absolutely false but had no relation to the matter in question. It was all very absurd but it also meant that, toward the end of three months on one ship, nerves will be nerves. There were a good many “coolnesses” toward the last, and in the smoking room some angry and bitter words, but on the whole, when we, our parrots and our other “unknown birds of brilliant plumage,” filed down the gang plank at Hoboken we were a tolerably good-natured crowd. Will any of the little groups ever meet again? I often wonder. It seems like something that happened a century ago in a tropical dream. PARENTS AND CHILDREN