but were sitting in the
lounge, trying, as I recollect, to match passengers with names upon the
sailing list, and failing very badly. The woman whom we picked for Mrs.
H. Van Rensselaer Somebody (travelling with two maids, two valets, one
Pomeranian, one husband, and no children) proves to be a Broadway
showgirl; and the one we dubbed a duchess, the proprietor of a Fifth
Avenue frock-foundry. Showgirls, milliners, and dressmakers are very
often the "smart" people of the ship, and it must be regretfully
admitted that duchesses too often fail to mark themselves by that
arrogance and overdress which free-born American citizens have a right
to expect of them.

It always seems to me they ought to put the peers and persons of
interest at the head of the passenger-list; but they do not. The first
place on the list of every liner is reserved for Mr. Aaron, precisely as
the last place is invariably held for Mr. Zwissler. But though the
alphabetical roller irons out our names in rows, it does not iron out
our tastes and personalities. We may still be quite as common or
exclusive as we wish. Take, for instance, the H. Van Rensselaer
Somebodys (of New York, Newport, and Paris). Low down on the list, they
are, nevertheless, up high on the ship. They will remain throughout the
voyage upon the topmost deck (cabins de luxe A, B, C, and D) in a state
of exclusive and elegant sea-sickness. You will not see them.
They have "absolutely nothing in common" with any of the other
passengers--excepting _mal de mer_ and perchance a wife or husband
ex-officio.

[Illustration: HOW THE SHIP ROLLS AND LURCHES!]

Of course we have an opera-singer on board--a lady with a figure like
the profile of a disc record. No home on the rolling deep can be
complete without one. You feel as if you really knew her personally,
having heard her voice so often upon your coffee-mill at home. And of
course we have an actor or an actress with us. A liner might as well
attempt to go to sea without a rudder as without one.

Also, if we are to have full measure, there must be on board a
playwright or a novelist, a scientific man, an absconder, a bishop, a
transatlantic sharper; a group of nasal people "personally conducted" by
a man with a sad, patient face; a lord, or at the very least, a baron
and some counts. The other passengers are, for the most part, colourless
and quiet people like ourselves.

The men upon a liner are divided into two broad classes: the deck