Beautiful weather; a mild southwest blow, with a moderate beam-sea;
only the deck _would_ come up smack against the soles of his boots in a
most unexpected and aggravating manner. But after the third day out,
he found his sea-legs and learned how to "lean." From two till five
his time was his own, and a very good deal of this time he devoted to
Henley and Morris and Walt Whitman, an ancient brier between his teeth
and a canister of excellent tobacco at his elbow. Odd, isn't it, that
an Englishman without his pipe is as incomplete as a Manx cat, which,
as doubtless you know, has no tail. After all, does a Manx cat know
that it is incomplete? Let me say, then, as incomplete as a small boy
without pockets.
Toward his fellow stewards he was friendly without being companionable;
and as they were of a decent sort, they let him go his way.
Several times during the voyage he opened his trunk and took out the
manuscripts. Hang it, they weren't so bally bad. If he could still
re-read them, after an hour or two with Henley, there must be some
merit to them.
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