Yet a portrait or so lingers in my mental repository;--let me throw them
in, to close off the lot.
No. 1. A sober Bostonian in the next state-room, whose assiduity with
his sea-sick wife reminds one of Cock-Robin, when he sent Jenny Wren
sops and wine. This person was last seen in a dressing-gown, square-cut
night-cap, and odd slippers, dancing up and down the state-room floor
with a cup of gruel, making wild passes with a spoon at an individual in
a berth, who never got any of the contents. Item, the gruel, in a moment
of excitement, finally ran in a stream upon the floor, and was wiped up
by the steward. Result not known, but disappointment is presumable.
No. 2. A stout lady, imprisoned by a board on a sofa nine inches wide,
called by a facetious friend "The Coffin." She complains that her sides
are tolerably battered in;--we hold our tongues, and think that the
board, too, has had a hard time of it. Yet she is a jolly soul, laughing
at her misfortunes, and chirruping to her baby. Her spirits keep up,
even when her dinner won't keep down. Her favorite expressions are "Good
George!" and "Oh, jolly!" She does not intend, she says, to lay in any
dry goods in Cuba, but means to eat up all the good victuals she comes
across.
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