The heavy travel was coming from the west, not going that way.

The series of cabins under his stewardship were vacant.
Therefore, with the thoroughness of his breed, he set about to learn "ship"; and by the time the first bugle for dinner blew, he knew port from starboard, boat-deck from main, and many other things, some unknown to the chief-steward who had made a hundred and twenty voyages on this very ship.
Beautiful weather; a mild southwest blow, with a moderate beam-sea; only the deck _would_ come up smack against the soles of his boots in a most unexpected and aggravating manner.

But after the third day out, he found his sea-legs and learned how to "lean." From two till five his time was his own, and a very good deal of this time he devoted to Henley and Morris and Walt Whitman, an ancient brier between his teeth and a canister of excellent tobacco at his elbow.

Odd, isn't it, that an Englishman without his pipe is as incomplete as a Manx cat, which, as doubtless you know, has no tail.

After all, does a Manx cat know that it is incomplete?
Let me say, then, as incomplete as a small boy without pockets.
Toward his fellow stewards he was friendly without being companionable; and as they were of a decent sort, they let him go his way.
Several times during the voyage he opened his trunk and took out the manuscripts.