g and patient
practice, proved to my own satisfaction what serves me best in case of
seasickness. I will not stay on deck. I will not eat or drink anything
to cure it. I will not take anything to prevent it. I will not sit up,
and I will not keep my hat on. When I go on board of a Channel steamer
my first act is to shake hands with my friends and to go below. There
I present the stewardess with a modest testimonial of my regard. I
also give her my ticket. Then I select the most desirable portion of
the settee, near a port-hole, from which I can get fresh air. I take
off my hat and lie down. The steamer may not start for an hour. No
matter. There I am, and there I stay. The Channel may be as smooth as
glass, but I travel better flat. Like manuscript, I am not to be
rolled. Sometimes I am not ill at all, but I freely confess that those
times are infrequent and disappointing.

Now, of course, this is always to be expected in crossing the Channel,
but my friends said in going up the Channel we would not get those
choppy waves, and that I would find that the _Hela_ swam like a duck.

In analyzing that statement since, with a view to classifying it as
truth or otherwise, I have studied my recollections of ducks, and I
have come to the conclusion that in a rough sea a duck has every right
to be seasick, for she wobbles like everything else that floats. For
real comfort, give me something that's anchored. Nevertheless, I was
persuaded to join the party.

Everybody came down at Dinard to see us off, and quite a number even
went over to St. Malo with us in the electric launch, for the _Hela_
drew too much water to enter the harbor at Dinard at low tide.

We were a merry party for the first hour on board the _Hela_--until we
struck the gale. It has seemed to me since that our evil genius was
hovering over us from the first, and simply waited until it would be
out of the question to turn back before emptying the vials of her
wrath on our devoted heads. It did not rain. The sun kept a malevolent
eye upon us all the time. It simply blew just one straight,
unrelenting, unswerving gale. And it came so suddenly. We were all
sitting on deck as happy as angels, when, without a word of warning,
the _Hela_ simply turned over on her side and threw us all out of our
chairs. I caught at a mast as I went by and clung like a limpet. There
was tar on the mast. It isn't there any more. It is on the front of my
new white serge yachting dress. J