I had not at
that time seen the ideal presentment of this chamber which has
since gratified me so much, but I observed that one of our friends
who had made the arrangements for our voyage, turned pale on
entering, retreated on the friend behind him, smote his forehead
involuntarily, and said below his breath, 'Impossible! it cannot
be!' or words to that effect. He recovered himself however by a
great effort, and after a preparatory cough or two, cried, with a
ghastly smile which is still before me, looking at the same time
round the walls, 'Ha! the breakfast-room, steward - eh?' We all
foresaw what the answer must be: we knew the agony he suffered.
He had often spoken of THE SALOON; had taken in and lived upon the
pictorial idea; had usually given us to understand, at home, that
to form a just conception of it, it would be necessary to multiply
the size and furniture of an ordinary drawing-room by seven, and
then fall short of the reality. When the man in reply avowed the
truth; the blunt, remorseless, naked truth; 'This is the saloon,
sir' - he actually reeled beneath the blow.
In persons who were so soon to part, and interpose between their
else daily communication the formidable barrier of many thousand
miles of stormy space, and who were for that reason anxious to cast
no other cloud, not even the passing shadow of a moment's
disappointment or discomfiture, upon the short interval of happy
companionship that yet remained to them - in persons so situated,
the natural transition from these first surprises was obviously
into peals of hearty laughter, and I can report that I, for one,
being still seated upon the slab or perch before mentioned, roared
outright until the vessel rang again.
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