The Argosy — page 224: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Board Sup Friendships. 207 guise of a good-natured, “‘ motherly body.” She is full of interest for her victim, and full of questions. She thinks he looks pale at break- fast, and advises him to take a mutton-chop. She banters him at dinner about the young lady he was playing chess with on deck, and very likely in the hearing of the young woman herself. If heis a lord, she enquires loudly across the table how his mother is; and in this way she takes possession of him bodily by right of the sea. He is flotsam and jetsam, whom it is lawful to annex, and the victim will bitterly repent the civility he offered such a person at the beginning, for all the rest of the voyage. It is impossible to shake off the friendship of this particular class. It is the hug of the old man of the sea. One’s quiet walks on deck, one’s tranquil smoke after breakfast, one’s siesta under the awning, one’s novel, are all spoiled by the persistent friendship of the man who affects to be jolly and sociable at sea, and expects that others will be so likewise. ‘The only way to get rid of this kind of friend- ship is to draw the man’s caricature and leave it about. Vanity is his weak point, and this will wound it if anything can. Of the same class is the spinster who is always drawing little drafts upon the kindness of her “friends.” So, at least, she calls the acquaintance of a few days or a week. One would think this young lady had never a friend on shore, she makes so much of those she has aboard. It is always, ‘‘ Oh, Mr. ——., will you be so kind ?” or ‘‘Oh, dear, how stupid of me, but would you mind?” until the victims of her behests are actually run off their legs upon missions more or less trivial. To offer to look for a box, or a handbag, for a damsel of this kind is as unsatisfactory as to make promises to Herodias’ daughter. From that day forth, until the time when the propeller ceases from troubling, and the weary are at rest, the man who has so committed himself will no longer be a free agent. Under the guise of friendship, she will keep him running up and down, or sticking in the hatchways. He will go about with an everlasting workbox or shawl in his hand, and he will not dare to smoke without permission from his little tyrant. There is only one chance for him—that some other man will be as big a fool as himself. That would hghten his labours by one half. The friendship of cabin chums, whether they happen to be young ladies or young men, is often of a very questionable character. ‘To get on at all with the person who shares your privacy is no easy undertaking, because one naturally begins with disliking him. Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galere ? Then the great Christian prin- ciple of give and take is so often misinterpreted by cabin chums. It is related that there were once two—one a very High Church clergy- man—who were bosom friends, until the one discovered his reverend companion improving his tonsure with the other’s pet razor. After that they never spoke again, not even in bed. If board-ship friendship can endure the test of cabin companion- CONnniclooolks (CO)