The servants were so attentive and the beds so soft that many of the ladies fell into the custom of having breakfast in the staterooms.
After lunch one sunny day we mounted the steep little stairs to the captain's quarters. His spacious combination living and bedroom with private bath was a miracle to those of us who had to have the room boy move the luggage in order to have space enough to open the quaint little bureau drawers. On his center table was one of those strange dwarf @Japanese trees, that are not permitted to be imported. These odd plants seem to thrive in spite of their diet of whiskey and the binding of their branches with tiny wires -- perhaps, if they must be fed exclusively on whiskey, there is another reason besides the possibility of their bringing into our country a foreign insect that excludes them.
We were told that the captain's and officers' quarters were certified and not counted when the capacity of the ship was figured, so the ship seemed bigger than ever to us. Next we invaded the chart room, saw the device that tells the whereabouts of a coming typhoon, listened to the telephonic arrangement that proclaims the proximity of the buoy bells, watched the little indicator that makes a red line depicting the exact course of the ship on a circular chart, tried out the fire alarm system that instantly rings a bell if a high temperature is registered any place on the ship, from the bridal suite to the darkest corner of the hold. We set the fog whistle to blow at regular intervals. We were told that the searchlight could enable the pilot to discover objects about five miles out, and by the time the gyro compass and numerous other devices had been explained to us, we were ready to believe that the ship cost seven million dollars, and that five thousand dollars was the daily operating expense (two thousand dollars of which was spent for the one thousand gallons of oil).
The mock trial was one of the features of the trip. Nearly everyone was arrested, sentenced or fined. Mrs. F. @Panter's and Captain @Ruben @Robinson's trials were the most sensational. In spite of Carl @Westerfeld's efforts to save Captain Robinson from being convicted of fox trotting with a certain charming widow, he was heavily sentenced. @Louis C. Brown was released upon the hearing of the eloquent pleadings of his attorney, Louis H. @Mooser. At the close of the session, Commissioner @Francis @Krull imposed a fine upon himself for his merciful tendencies as the judge.
When a crowd of us piled into the wireless room and asked the whys and wherefores, the poor operator gave up trying to explain why the messages were all sent at night, and settled the matter by telling us that the atmospheric conditions were better then, and that the ship was equipped with two systems, the spark and the arc, but that the arc was given the preference.
