The trip across was fortunately a pleasant one and as we were a jolly party the time passed all too quickly, the seductive game of draw poker and other amusements of a kindred sort helping us to forget that the old gentleman with the scythe and hourglass was still busily engaged in making his daily rounds.
It was my first sea voyage, and to say that I enjoyed it would be to state but the simple truth.

The element of poetry was left largely out of my make-up and so I did not go into ecstasies over the foam-crested waves as did several of the party, but I was as fond of watching for the flying fish that now and then skimmed the waves and for the porpoises that often put in an appearance as any of the rest of the party.

If I speculated at all as to the immensity of the rolling deep by which we were surrounded, it was because I wished that I might be able to devise some plan for bottling it up and sending it out West to the old gentleman to be used for irrigating purposes.

That such an amount of water should have been, allowed to go to waste was to me a matter for wonderment.

I was looking at the practical side of the matter, and not at the poetical.
July 27th we arrived at Liverpool and as the majority of us had grown tired of the monotony of sea life we were glad enough once more to set foot on solid land.