AN OCTOBER ABROAD 231 



fork and a breakfast plate slipped off the sofa and 

 joined in the race; but, if not distanced, they got 

 sadly the worst of it, especially the plate. But 

 the carpet had the most reason to complain. Two 

 or three turns sufficed to loosen it from the floor, 

 when, shoved to one side, the two trunks took 

 turns in butting it. I used to allow this sport to 

 go on till it grew monotonous, when I would alter- 

 nately shout and ring until "Eobert" appeared and 

 restored order. 



The condition of certain picture-frames and vases 

 and other frail articles among my effects, when I 

 reached home, called to mind not very pleasantly 

 this trunken frolic. 



It is impossible not to sympathize with the ship 

 in her struggles with the waves. You are lying 

 there wedged into your berth, and she seems in- 

 deed a thing of life and conscious power. She is 

 built entirely of iron, is 500 feet long, and, besides 

 other freight, carries 2,500 tons of railroad iron, 

 which lies down there flat in her bottom, a dead, 

 indigestible weight, so unlike a cargo in bulk, yet 

 she is a quickened spirit for all that. You feel 

 every wave that strikes her; you feel the sea bear- 

 ing her down; she has run her nose into one of 

 those huge swells, and a solid blue wall of water 

 tons in weight comes over her bows and floods her 

 forward deck ; she braces herself, every rod and rivet 

 and timber seems to lend its support; you almost 

 expect to see the wooden walls of your room grow 

 rigid with muscular contraction; she trembles from 



