A gull cut through the blueness, winging it
in festoons.
"Over this way, Miss Bleema; we can see her steaming out."
"Lester--good-by--Lester--a cable every day! I'll be waiting. Good-by!"
All this unavailingly flung to the great hulk of boat moving so proud of
bow and so grandly out to sea, decks of faces and waving kerchiefs
receding quickly.
"Good-by--darling--oh--oh--"
"'Sh-h--'sh-h-h, Miss Bleema. Here--take another of mine. Yours is all
wet again. My--what a rainy day! Here--let me dry them for you.
Hold still!"
"Oh--oh--cable every day, darling--write--oh, Mr. Feist--he
don't see us--he's out of sight--don't wipe 'em so hard, Mr.
Feist--you--you h-hurt!"
Out toward the blue, the billowing fields sailed away the gray steamer,
cutting a path that sprayed and sang after. Sunlight danced and lay
whitely as far as the eye could reach. It prolonged for those on shore
the contour of the line of faces above each deck; it picked points of
light from off everywhere--off smokestacks and polished railings, off
plate-glass and brass-bound port-holes and even down the ship's flank,
to where gilt letters spelled out shiningly:
"_LUSITANIA._"
A BOOB SPELLED BACKWARD
How difficult it is to think of great lives in terms of the small
mosaics that go to make up the pattern of every man's day-by-day--the
too tepid shaving-water; the badly laundered shirt-front; the
three-minute egg; the too-short fourth leg of the table; the draught on
the neck; the bad pen; the neighboring rooster; the misplaced key; the
slipping chest-protector.
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