name was Moses or Cohen. If it wasn't it should have been―or Isaacs. His christian name was probably Benjamin. We called him Jacobs. He passed away most of his time on board in swopping watch lies with the other passengers and good-naturedly spoiling their Waterburys.
One commercial traveller shipped with a flower in his button-hole. His girl gave it to him on the wharf and told him to keep it till it faded, and then press it. She was a barmaid. She thought he was 'going saloon,' but he came forward as soon as the wharf was out of sight. He gave the flower to the stewardess, and told us about these things one moonlight night during the voyage.
There was another―a well-known Sydney man―whose friends thought that he was going saloon, and turned up in good force to see him off. He spent his last shilling 'shouting,' and kept up his end of the pathetic little farce out of consideration for the feelings of certain proud female relations, and not because he was 'proud'―at least not that way. He stood on a conspicuous part of the saloon deck and waved his white handkerchief until Miller's Point came between. Then he came forward where he belonged. But he was proud―bitterly so. He had a flower too, but he did not give it to the stewardess. He had it pressed, we think (for we knew him), and perhaps he wears it now over the place where his heart used to be.
When Australia was fading from view we shed a tear, which was all we had to shed; at least, we tried to shed a tear, and could not. It is best to be exact when you are writing from experience.
