ied on several evenings by the young
gentlemen and ladies, in the cabins, and proved the most distinguished
success of all the amusement experiments.

An attempt was made to organize a debating club, but it was a failure.
There was no oratorical talent in the ship.

We all enjoyed ourselves--I think I can safely say that, but it was in a
rather quiet way. We very, very seldom played the piano; we played the
flute and the clarinet together, and made good music, too, what there was
of it, but we always played the same old tune; it was a very pretty tune
--how well I remember it--I wonder when I shall ever get rid of it. We
never played either the melodeon or the organ except at devotions--but I
am too fast: young Albert did know part of a tune something about
"O Something-Or-Other How Sweet It Is to Know That He's His
What's-his-Name" (I do not remember the exact title of it, but it was
very plaintive and full of sentiment); Albert played that pretty much
all the time until we contracted with him to restrain himself. But
nobody ever sang by moonlight on the upper deck, and the congregational
singing at church and prayers was not of a superior order of
architecture. I put up with it as long as I could and then joined in
and tried to improve it, but this encouraged young George to join in
too, and that made a failure of it; because George's voice was just
"turning," and when he was singing a dismal sort of bass it was apt to
fly off the handle and startle everybody with a most discordant cackle
on the upper notes. George didn't know the tunes, either, which was
also a drawback to his performances. I said:

"Come, now, George, don't improvise. It looks too egotistical. It will
provoke remark. Just stick to 'Coronation,' like the others. It is a
good tune--you can't improve it any, just off-hand, in this way."

"Why, I'm not trying to improve it--and I am singing like the others
--just as it is in the notes."

And he honestly thought he was, too; and so he had no one to blame but
himself when his voice caught on the center occasionally and gave him the
lockjaw.

There were those among the unregenerated who attributed the unceasing
head-winds to our distressing choir-music. There were those who said
openly that it was taking chances enough to have such ghastly music going
on, even when it was at its best; and that to exaggerate the crime by
letting George help was simply flying in the face of Providence. Thes