c_.

THE SECOND MAN

How is she?

THE FIRST MAN

Oh, so-so.

THE SECOND MAN

I hear the meals on those English ships are nothing to what they used to
be.

THE FIRST MAN

That's what everybody tells me. But, as for me, I can't say I found them
so bad. I had to send back the potatoes twice and the breakfast bacon
once, but they had very good lima beans.

THE SECOND MAN

Isn't that English bacon awful stuff to get down?

THE FIRST MAN

It certainly is: all meat and gristle. I wonder what an Englishman would
say if you put him next to a plate of genuine, crisp, _American_ bacon.

THE SECOND MAN

I guess he would yell for the police--or choke to death.

THE FIRST MAN

Did you like the German cooking on the _Kronprinz_?

THE SECOND MAN

Well, I did and I didn't. The chicken a la Maryland was very good, but
they had it only once. I could eat it every day.

THE FIRST MAN

Why didn't you order it?

THE SECOND MAN

It wasn't on the bill.

THE FIRST MAN

Oh, bill be damned! You might have ordered it anyhow. Make a fuss and
you'll get what you want. These foreigners have to be bossed around.
They're used to it.

THE SECOND MAN

I guess you're right. There was a fellow near me who set up a holler
about his room the minute he saw it--said it was dark and musty and not
fit to pen a hog in--and they gave him one twice as large, and the chief
steward bowed and scraped to him, and the room stewards danced around
him as if he was a duke. And yet I heard later that he was nothing but a
Bismarck herring importer from Hoboken.

THE FIRST MAN

Yes, that's the way to get what you want. Did you have any nobility on
board?

THE SECOND MAN

Yes, there was a Hungarian baron in the automobile business, and two
English sirs. The baron was quite a decent fellow: I had a talk with him
in the smoking room one night. He didn't put on any airs at all. You
would have thought he was an ordinary man. But the sirs kept to
themselves. All they did the whole voyage was to write letters, wear
their dress suits and curse the stewards.

THE FIRST MAN

They tell me over here that the best eating is on the French lines.

THE SECOND MAN

Yes, so I hear. But some say, too, that the Scandinavian lines are best,
and then again I have heard people boosting the Italian lines.

THE FIRST MAN

I guess each one has its points. They say that you get wine free with
meals on the French b