"Flirting! Mamma! It's too mean! You won't let me flirt. I havn't enjoyed myself a minute since we sailed. I wish you would let me alone to do as I please." The poor child envied her mother, and with good reason, for within ten minutes she was under the wing, or arm, of the widower, looking not a minute over thirty-five. There were old maids who found themselves objects of attention for the first time for years; there were widows who grew sentimental looking at the changing waters, especially at night when the moon and stars were out; there were married men whose wives were many leagues away, determined to have a good time once more, flirting with all sorts and conditions of women, and there were all sorts and conditions of women flirting hungrily with all sorts and conditions of men. There were speculators driving bargains with each other just the same as on land--in brief, the ship was a little world by itself, and just about the same as any other world. In the smoking room the great and muscular American game of draw poker was played incessantly, from early in the morning, till late in the night. A portion of the passengers, including the English dominie, played a game called "shuffle-board." Squares were marked upon the deck, which were numbered from one to seven. Then some distance from the squares a line was drawn, and what you had to do was to take an implement shaped like a crutch, and shove discs of wood at the squares. We all played it, sooner or later, for on ship-board one will get, in time, to playing pin alone in his room. The beauty about shuffle-board is, one player is as good as another, if not better, for there isn't the slightest skill to be displayed in it. Indeed, the best playing is always done at first, when the player shoots entirely at random. There is a chance that he will strike a square, then; but when one gets to calculating distances, and looking knowingly, and attempting some particular square, the chances are even that the disc goes overboard. However, it is a good and useful game. The young ladies look well handling the clumsy cues, and the attitudes they are compelled to take are graceful. Then as the vessel lurches they fall naturally in your arms. By the way, it is a curious fact and one worthy of record, that I did not see a young lady fall into the arms of another young lady during the entire voyage. We had on board, as a matter of course, the betting young man from Chicago. No steamer ever sailed that did not have this young fellow aboard, and there is enough of them to last the Atlantic for a great many years. He knew everything that everybody thinks they know, but do not, and his delight was to propound a query, and then when you had answered it, to very coolly and exasperatingly remark:-- "Bet yer bottle of wine you're wrong."