A little way off from us was four other political enemies o' J. Frank Hanly, tellin' my Greek friend in tonsorial tones that if he didn't like his Uncle Sammy he knowed what he could do.
"Don't you like your Uncle Sammy?" I ast him.
"I don't have to work," he says. "I got the mon'."
"Then why don't you take them boys' advice," I says, "and go back to your home o'er the sea?"
"Too rough; too rough!" he says; and in the twenty minutes I stood there with him, findin' out whether they was really a bar, he didn't say nothin' except that he had the mon', and he didn't have to work, and somethin' was too rough.
I and the Missus went back up on deck. I steered for the end o' the boat that was farthest from where we'd left Bess and Bishop, but they'd began to get restless, and we run into them takin' a walk.
"Down watchin' 'em dance," says the Missus.
"Is they a place to dance aboard?" ast Bishop.
But I didn't want 'em to dance, because that'd be an excuse not to say nothin' to each other for a w'ile. So I says:
"They's a place, all right; but five or six couple's already on the floor, and when you get more'n that trottin' round at once it's li'ble to rock the boat and be disastrous."
I took the Wife's arm and started to move on.
"Just for a stroll round the decks," says I.
I seen the treatment was beginnin' to work. "Nothin' doin'!" I says. "This is one of our semi-annual honeymoons and we can't use no outside help."
A few minutes before we hit St. Joe we seen 'em again, settin' down below, afraid to dance and entirely out o' conversation. They was havin' just as good a time as Jennie's babies.
"We're pretty near in," I says, "and 'twas one o' the smoothest crossin's I ever made."
"They couldn't nobody get sick in weather like this," says Bess.
"No," I says, "but you take a smooth Saturday afternoon and it generally always means a rough Sunday night."
"Ain't they no railroad between here and Chi?" ast Bishop.
"Not direct," I says. "You have to go to Lansing and then cut across to Fort Wayne. If you make good connections you can do it in a day and two nights, but most o' the way is through the copper ranges and the trains keeps gettin' later and later, and when they try to make up time they generally always slip offen the track and spill their contents."