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Page 13
In the saloon sat the club, and their faces were the faces of men at
peace, men harmonious and of delicate cheer. The doctor, a seafaring
man, talked the lingo of imperial mariners: he knew the right things
to say: he carried along the humble secretary, who gazed in
melodious mood upon the jar of pickled onions. At sea Mr. Green is
of lurking manners: he holds fast to his bunk lest worse befall; but
a ship in port is his empire. Scotch broth was before them--pukka
Scotch broth, the doctor called it; and also the captain and the
doctor had some East Indian name for the chutney. The secretary
resolved to travel and see the world. Curried chicken and rice was
the word: and, not to exult too cruelly upon you (O excellent
friends!), let us move swiftly over the gooseberry tart. There was
the gooseberry tart, and again, a few minutes later, it was not
there. All things have their appointed end. "Boy!" said the captain.
(Must I remind you, we were on imperial soil.) Is it to be said that
the club rose to the captain's cabin once more, and matters of
admirable purport were tastefully discussed, as is the habit of us
mariners?
"The drastic sanity of the sea"--it is a phrase from a review of one
of the captain's own books, "Merchantmen-at-Arms," which this club
(so it runs upon the minutes), as lovers of sea literature,
officially hope may soon be issued on this side also. It is a
phrase, if these minutes are correct, from a review written by H.M.
Tomlinson, another writer of the sea, of whom we have spoken before,
and may, in God's providence, again. "The drastic sanity of the sea"
was the phrase that lingered in our mind as we heard the captain
talk of books and of discipline at sea and of the trials imposed
upon shipmasters by the La Follette act. (What, the club wondered
inwardly, does Mr. La Follette know of seafaring?) "The drastic
sanity of the sea!" We thought of other sailors we had known, and
how they had found happiness and simplicity in the ordered combat
with their friendly enemy. A virtue goes out of a ship (Joseph
Conrad said, in effect) when she touches her quay. Her beauty and
purpose are, for the moment, dulled and dimmed. But even there, how
much she brings us. How much, even though we do not put it into
words, the faces and accents of our seafaring friends give us in the
way of plain wisdom and idealism. And the secretary, as he stepped
aboard the hubbub of a subway train, was still pondering "the
drastic sanity of the sea."
[Illustration]
INITIATION
Allured by the published transactions of the club, our friend Lawton
presented himself at the headquarters toward lunch time and
announced himself as a candidate for membership. An executive
session was hastily convened. Endymion broke the news to the
candidate that initiates in this select organization are expected to
entertain the club at luncheon. To the surprise of the club, our
genial visitor neither shrank nor quailed. His face was bland and
his bearing ambitious in the extreme. Very well, he said; as long as
it isn't the Beaux Arts caf�.
The itinerary of the club for this day had already been arranged by
the secretary. The two charter members, plus the high-spirited
acolyte, made their way along West Street toward the Cortlandt
Street ferry. It was plain from the outset that fortune had favoured
the organization with a new member of the most sparkling quality.
Every few yards a gallant witticism fell from him. Some of these the
two others were able to juggle and return, but many were too
flashing for them to cope with. In front of the ferry house lay a
deep and quaggish puddle of slime, crossable only by ginger-footed
work upon sheets of tin. Endymion rafted his tenuous form across
with a delicate straddle of spidery limbs. The secretary followed,
with a more solid squashing technique. "Ha," cried the new member;
"grace before meat!" Endymion and the secretary exchanged secret
glances. Lawton, although he knew it not, was elected from that
moment.
The ritual of the club, while stern toward initiates, is not brutal.
Since you are bursar for the lunch, said the secretary, I will buy
the ferry tickets, and he did so. On the boat these carefree men
gazed blithely upon the shipping. "Little did I think," said Lawton,
"that I was going for a sea voyage." "That," said the club, "is the
kind of fellows we are. Whimsical. As soon as we think of a thing,
we don't do it."
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