Part 2

"A couple of months."

"What ship'd you come over in?"

"The Kronprinz Friedrich."

"Aha, the German line! I guess you found the grub all right."

"Oh, in the main. I have eaten better, but then again, I have eaten worse."

"Well, they charge you enough for it, whether you get it or not. A man could live at the Plaza cheaper."

"I should say he could. What boat did you come over in?"

"The Maurentic."

"How is she?"

"Oh, so-so."

"I hear the meals on those English ships are nothing to what they used to be."

"That's what everybody tells me. But, as for me, I can't say I found them so bad. I had to send back the potatoes twice and the breakfast bacon once, but they had very good lima beans."

"Isn't that English bacon awful stuff to get down?"

"It certainly is: all meat and gristle. I wonder what an Englishman would say if you put him next to a plate of genuine, crisp, American bacon?"

"I guess he would yell for the police--or choke to death."

"Did you like the German cooking on the Kronprinz?"

"Well, I did and I didn't. The chicken a la Maryland was very good, but they had it only once. I could eat it every day."

"Why didn't you order it?"

"It wasn't on the bill."

"Oh, bill be damned! You might have ordered it anyhow. Make a fuss and you'll get what you want. These foreigners have to be bossed around. They're used to it."

"I guess you're right. There was a fellow near me who set up a holler about his room the minute he saw it--said it was dark and musty and not fit to pen a hog in--and they gave him one twice as large, and the chief steward bowed and scraped to him, and the room stewards danced around him as if he was a duke. And yet I heard later that he was nothing but a Bismarck herring importer from Hoboken."

"Yes, that's the way to get what you want. Did you have any nobility on board?"

"Yes, there was a Hungarian baron in the automobile business, and two English sirs. The baron was quite a decent fellow: I had a talk with him in the smoking room one night. He didn't put on any airs at all. You would have thought he was an ordinary man. But the sirs kept to themselves. All they did the whole voyage was to write letters, wear their dress suits and curse the stewards."

"They tell me over here that the best eating is on the French lines."

"Yes, so I hear. But some say, too, that the Scandinavian lines are best, and then again I have heard people boosting the Italian lines."

"I guess each one has its points. They say that you get wine free with meals on the French boats."

"But I hear it's fourth rate wine."

"Well, you don't have to drink it."