LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

proclaimed "a good 10," and the game-keeper set it down. I played: my disk grazed the edge of Mr. Thomas's disk, and

       went out of the diagram. (No applause.)

       Mr. Thomas played again--and landed his second disk alongside of the first, and almost touching its right-hand side. "Good 10." (Great applause.)

       I played, and missed both of them. (No applause.)

       Mr. Thomas delivered his third shot and landed his disk just at the right

       65

       of the other two. "Good 10." (Immense applause.)

       There they lay, side by side, the three in a row. It did not seem possible that anybody could miss them. Still I did it. (Immense silence.)

       Mr. Thomas played his last disk. It seems incredible, but he actually landed that disk alongside of the others, and just to the right of them-a straight solid row of 4 disks. (Tumultuous and long-continued applause.)

       Then I played my last disk. Again it did not seem possible that anybody could miss that row--a row which would have been 14 inches long if the disks had been clamped together; whereas, with the spaces separating them they made a longer row than that. But I did it. It may be that I was

       getting nervous.

       I think it unlikely that that innings has ever had its parallel in the history of horse-billiards. To place the four disks side by side in the

       10 was an extraordinary feat; indeed, it was a kind of miracle. To miss them was another miracle. It will take a century to produce another man

       who can place the four disks in the 10; and longer than that to find a

       man who can't knock them out. I was ashamed of my performance at the time, but now that I reflect upon it I see that it was rather fine and difficult.

       Mr. Thomas kept his luck, and won the game, and later the championship.

       In a minor tournament I won the prize, which was a Waterbury watch. I

       put it in my trunk. In Pretoria, South Africa, nine months afterward, my

       66

       proper watch broke down and I took the Waterbury out, wound it, set it by the great clock on the Parliament House (8.05), then went back to my room and went to bed, tired from a long railway journey. The parliamentary

       clock had a peculiarity which I was not aware of at the time

       --a peculiarity which exists in no other clock, and would not exist in that

       one if it had been made by a sane person; on the half-hour it strikes the succeeding hour, then strikes the hour again, at the proper time. I lay reading and smoking awhile; then, when I could hold my eyes open no longer and was about to put out the light, the great clock began to boom, and I counted ten. I reached for the Waterbury to see how it was getting along. It was marking 9.30. It seemed rather poor speed for a

       three-dollar watch, but I supposed that the climate was affecting it. I shoved it half an hour ahead; and took to my book and waited to see what would happen. At 10 the great clock struck ten again. I looked--the Waterbury was marking halfpast 10. This was too much speed for the money, and it troubled me. I pushed the hands back a half hour, and waited once more; I had to, for I was vexed and restless now, and my sleepiness was gone. By and by the great clock struck 11. The Waterbury was marking 10.30. I pushed it ahead half an hour, with some show of temper. By and by the great clock struck 11 again. The Waterbury showed up 11.30, now, and I beat her brains out against the bedstead. I was

       sorry next day, when I found out.

       To return to the ship.

       The average human being is a perverse creature; and when he isn't that, he is a practical joker. The result to the other person concerned is

       about the same: that is, he is made to suffer. The washing down of the

       67

       decks begins at a very early hour in all ships; in but few ships are any measures taken to protect the passengers, either by waking or warning them, or by sending a steward to close their ports. And so the deckwashers have their opportunity, and they use it. They send a bucket of water slashing along the side of the ship and into the ports, drenching the passenger's clothes, and often the passenger himself. This good old custom prevailed in this ship, and under unusually favorable circumstances, for in the blazing tropical regions a removable zinc thing like a sugarshovel projects from the port to catch the wind and bring it in; this thing catches the wash-water and brings it in, too--and in

       flooding abundance. Mrs. I., an invalid, had to sleep on the locker--

       sofa

       under her port, and every time she over-slept and thus failed to take care of herself, the deckwashers drowned her out.

       And the painters, what a good time they had! This ship would be going into dock for a month in Sydney for repairs; but no matter, painting was going on all the time somewhere or other. The ladies' dresses were constantly getting ruined, nevertheless protests and supplications went for nothing. Sometimes a lady, taking an afternoon nap on deck near a ventilator or some other thing that didn't need painting, would wake up

       by and by and find that the humorous painter had been noiselessly daubing

       that thing and had splattered her white gown all over with little greasy yellow spots.

       The blame for this untimely painting did not lie with the ship's

       officers, but with custom. As far back as Noah's time it became law that ships must be constantly painted and fussed at when at sea; custom grew out of the law, and at sea custom knows no death; this custom will

       68

       continue until the sea goes dry.

       Sept. 8.--Sunday. We are moving so nearly south that we cross only about two meridians of longitude a day. This morning we were in longitude 178 west from Greenwich, and 57 degrees west from San Francisco. Tomorrow we shall be close to the center of the globe--the 180th degree of west longitude and 180th degree of east longitude.

       And then we must drop out a day-lose a day out of our lives, a day never to be found again. We shall all die one day earlier than from the beginning of time we were foreordained to die. We shall be a day behindhand all through eternity. We shall always be saying to the other angels, "Fine day today," and they will be always retorting, "But it

       isn't to-day, it's tomorrow." We shall be in a state of confusion all the time and shall never know what true happiness is.

       Next Day. Sure enough, it has happened. Yesterday it was September 8, Sunday; to-day, per the bulletin-board at the head of the companionway, it is September 10, Tuesday. There is something uncanny about it. And uncomfortable. In fact, nearly unthinkable, and wholly unrealizable,

       when one comes to consider it. While we were crossing the 180th meridian it was Sunday in the stern of the ship where my family were, and Tuesday

       in the bow where I was. They were there eating the half of a fresh apple on the 8th, and I was at the same time eating the other half of it on the

       10th--and I could notice how stale it was, already. The family were the same age that they were when I had left them five minutes before, but I was a day older now than I was then. The day they were living in

       stretched behind them half way round the globe, across the Pacific Ocean

       and America and Europe; the day I was living in stretched in front of me

       69

       around the other half to meet it. They were stupendous days for bulk and stretch; apparently much larger days than we had ever been in before.

       All previous days had been but shrunk-up little things by comparison.

       The difference in temperature between the two days was very marked, their day being hotter than mine because it was closer to the equator.

       Along about the moment that we were crossing the Great Meridian a child was born in the steerage, and now there is no way to tell which day it

       was born on. The nurse thinks it was Sunday,

Скачать книгу