They seemed to throw their clothes in our
faces. Their eyes searched us all over for tatters and
incongruities. A laugh was ready at their lips; but they were too
well-mannered to indulge it in our hearing. Wait a bit, till they
were all back in the saloon, and then hear how wittily they would
depict the manners of the steerage. We were in truth very
innocently, cheerfully, and sensibly engaged, and there was no shadow
of excuse for the swaying elegant superiority with which these
damsels passed among us, or for the stiff and waggish glances of
their squire. Not a word was said; only when they were gone Mackay
sullenly damned their impudence under his breath; but we were all
conscious of an icy influence and a dead break in the course of our
enjoyment.
STEERAGE TYPES
We had a fellow on board, an Irish-American, for all the world like a
beggar in a print by Callot; one-eyed, with great, splay crow's-feet
round the sockets; a knotty squab nose coming down over his
moustache; a miraculous hat; a shirt that had been white, ay, ages
long ago; an alpaca coat in its last sleeves; and, without hyperbole,
no buttons to his trousers.
Pages:
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57