The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 02Stevenson, Robert Louis
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The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 02
Stevenson, Robert Louis
English literature -- 19th century
The last particular in which the second cabin passenger remarkably
stands ahead of his brother of the steerage is one altogether of
sentiment. In the steerage there are males and females; in the second
cabin ladies and gentlemen. For some time after I came aboard I thought
I was only a male; but in the course of a voyage of discovery between
decks, I came on a brass plate, and learned that I was still a
gentleman. Nobody knew it, of course. I was lost in the crowd of males
and females, and rigorously confined to the same quarter of the deck.
Who could tell whether I housed on the port or starboard side of
Steerage No. 2 and 3? And it was only there that my superiority became
practical; everywhere else I was incognito, moving among my inferiors
with simplicity, not so much as a swagger to indicate that I was a
gentleman after all, and had broken meat to tea. Still, I was like one
with a patent of nobility in a drawer at home; and when I felt out of
spirits I could go down and refresh myself with a look of that brass
plate.
For all these advantages I paid but two guineas. Six guineas is the
steerage fare; eight that by the second cabin; and when you remember
that the steerage passenger must supply bedding and dishes, and, in five
cases out of ten, either brings some dainties with him, or privately
pays the steward for extra rations, the difference in price becomes
almost nominal. Air comparatively fit to breathe, food comparatively
varied, and the satisfaction of being still privately a gentleman, may
thus be had almost for the asking. Two of my fellow-passengers in the
second cabin had already made the passage by the cheaper fare, and
declared it was an experiment not to be repeated. As I go on to tell
about my steerage friends, the reader will perceive that they were not
alone in their opinion. Out of ten with whom I was more or less
intimate, I am sure not fewer than five vowed, if they returned, to
travel second cabin; and all who had left their wives behind them
assured me they would go without the comfort of their presence until
they could afford to bring them by saloon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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