Boarder

“ After supper, we went on deck to smoke, as was our custom, but there was a certain coolness between me and our boarder.
Early the next morning I arose and went upstairs to consider what had better be done, when I saw the boarder standing on shore near by.
"Hello!" he cried! "the tide's down, and I got ashore without any trouble. You stay where you are. I've hired a couple of mules to tow the boat back. They'll be here when the tide rises. ”

“ The boarder is often, if not generally, the cottager's superior in culture, in acquirements, and in variety of social experience. He does not board because he likes the food, but simply because it enables him to live in the midst of beautiful scenery. ”

“ I believe we are the first they have had, and if they only knew how much nicer we are than most boarders, [236] I fancy they would not hate us quite so much. Mother always says that being a boarder changes one's whole nature—the gentlest and most generous becoming stern and exacting. At any rate, Edwin and I have not been boarders long enough to become very hateful, and these three girls could board forever and never become professionals in that line.
Please write to me soon. I am so glad Kent's firm won the competition for that great hotel. ”

“ The newest boarder never coalesces with the group until the advent of another still newer, when he is tentatively admitted to ranks needing union against the latest intruder. This survival of prehistoric manners may be observed and experienced in any boarding-house. ”

“ I shall try to go through the rest of my description of our boarders with as little of digression as is consistent with my nature. I think we have a somewhat exceptional company. Since our Landlady has got up in the world, her board has been decidedly a favorite with persons a little above the average in point of intelligence and education. ”

“ I was going to say something about our boarders the other day when I got run away with by my local reminiscences. I wish you to understand that we have a rather select company at the table of our boarding-house.
Our Landlady is a most respectable person, who has seen better days, of course,—all landladies have,—but has also, I feel sure, seen a good deal worse ones. ”

“ CHAPTER XXXVI. In a dark, narrow street, in one of those heterogeneous boarding-houses abounding in the city, where clerks, market-boys, apprentices, and sewing-girls, bolt their meals with railroad velocity; where the maid-of-all-work, with red arms, frowzy head, and leathern lungs, screams in the entry for any boarder who happens to be inquired for at the door; where one plate suffices for fish, flesh, fowl, and dessert; where soiled table-cloths, sticky crockery, oily cookery, and bad grammar, predominate ”

“ DEFINITIONS AND AXIOMS All boarding-houses are the same boarding-house.
Boarders in the same boarding-house and on the same flat are equal to one another.
A single room is that which has no parts and no magnitude.
The landlady of a boarding-house is a parallelogram—that is, an oblong angular figure, which cannot be described, but which is equal to anything. ”

“ These young girls that live in boarding-houses can do pretty much as they will. The female gendarmes are off guard occasionally. The sitting-room has its solitary moments, when any two boarders who wish to meet may come together accidentally, (accidentally, I said, Madam, and I had not the slightest intention of Italicizing the word,) and discuss the social or political questions of the day, or any other subject that may prove interesting. ”

“ A DETECTIVE ON THE TRACK. Boarding-house life tends to make one selfish; “each for himself and God for us all,” is the boarders’ motto. Where people come and go, drifting in and out like weeds upon the tide, deep interests or affections are rare, but even in boarding-houses men are sometimes thoughtful, and women sympathetic. This is especially true in cases of illness. The medical lady and Mrs. Dumaresq rushed to the assistance of Prudence when she stumbled off the sofa in a dead faint. ”

“ Why does he come away?
Why is he here?
A SLIGHT MISUNDERSTANDING
Landlady. "I hope you slept well, sir?"
New Boarder. "No, I didn't. I've been troubled with insomnia."
Landlady. "Look here, young man. I'll give you a sovereign for every one you find in that bed!"
[Pg 160]
TOUCHING APPEAL
Testy Old Gent. (wearied by the importunities of the Brighton boatmen) . "Confound it, man! Do I look as if I wanted a boat?"
ROBERT AT THE SEASIDE
I've bin spending my long Wacation of a fortnite at Northgate. ”

“ Everything seems too heavy to them, and as the boarding-house keeper takes them as boarders, and does not propose catering to their special conditions for the price they pay, they are obliged to make the best of what they have. ”

“ Twenty boarders and seventy-two day girls—that's ninety-two, and you'll make the ninety-third. There are eight Senior boarders, and they've got a sitting-room of their own, with a carpet on the floor. ”

“ Boarding is an anomalous and enforced relation between people who offer and accept house-room, and only those can escape its blight who have the power always to elevate the commercial to the plane of the human and the friendly. Luckily, among this small but noble company are many persons that board and many that take boarders. The existence of this minority does not alter the fact that for most of us boarding is a demoralizing occupation. The reason lies deep: hospitality, given or received, is too sacred for barter.
VI
The Lady Alone at Night I AM a lady, and a coward. ”

“ I will stay home and help you get ready. Our prosperity couldn't begin without the troubles, if you mean boarders, and boarders mean servants. I shall be very glad to be afflicted with a cook for a while myself. ”

“ If there be passengers on board, you are sensible of an uneasy movement among them, strangely suggestive of mingled excitement and reluctance, as though they were at once eager and loath to quit their floating home, the familiar cabin in which so many hours have been passed, the white decks which have become to them what the pavement in front of your house is to you. The ship is endeared to them, and the hold she has upon them is felt now that they shall shortly leave her. ”

“ There is the boarding-house, advertised as "Directly facing the sea;" and when you have engaged your rooms, and arrive with all your luggage, you find the establishment is at the far end of a side street; and "Directly facing the sea" is interpreted by the fact that by hanging half-way out of the sitting-room widow, and screwing your head round violently to the left, you can see the place where that watery monarch ought to be.
"A boarding-house is so much nicer than an hotel, because you get to know the people so much easier," I heard a girl remark once. ”

“ Our faithful companion now approaches nearer; her crew give us three hearty cheers; the officers on the bridge salute; and we two lonely men on the tower return the salute. Then the little black boat ducks into the sea, makes a beautiful turn, stirring up the foaming water at her keel, grows smaller and smaller, and presently disappears, leaving a thin drifting smoke-flag behind her.
We are left to ourselves, and travel into the Unknown. ”

“ Farm-houses, hamlets and villages were constantly in sight. We stopped at several towns in the course of the afternoon, discharging and receiving passengers and freight. I sat all the afternoon and long after dark on deck near the bow of the boat, beholding and enjoying these varied sights. Finally, I became drowsy and sought the deck-passengers quarters astern. I found not only all the bunks on both sides occupied by two or more sleepers each, but men, women, and children crowded so closely together on the deck that one could hardly help stepping on them. ”

“ The passengers on board ship afford a different sort of society from that of the crew: they belong to another element; their destinies are of the land. Some travel in search of fortune, others of rest; these are returning home, those leaving [Pg 195] it; others cross the seas in order to become acquainted with the manners of nations, to study science and art. People have time to know one another in this wandering hostelry which travels with the traveller, to have many adventures, to breed antipathies, to contract friendships. ”

“ I have known men to be carried on board ship by boarding-house keepers, who had enticed them into their dens of infamy, and who had drugged them so powerfully that they did not recover their senses until the vessel had left the port. ”

“ One sight we have just witnessed, is ridiculous to us who have the best of it—very disagreeable to the actors in the scene: on arriving at the quay the travellers poured out from the steamer, the porters shouldered the luggage, and all came in one stream to our hotel. ”

“ The others followed his example; and soon, in the wide, and sparingly and weakly lighted lower deck of the great boat, groups of sleepy passengers sat or lay about in all directions, some with their heads resting upon their luggage, some alongside of a chest, and passed the night by no means conveniently, for in addition to their other discomforts, the cool river air blew in from all sides of the open boat, feeling anything but beneficial, and awakening lively longings in the hearts of the travellers for a warm bed. ”

“ On the morning of departure, every labourer takes his post, the rowers on their benches, the guides of the leading rafts on theirs, and each boat's crew in its own vessel. The eldest of the valet-masters then makes the tour of the whole float, examines the labourers, passes them in review, and dismisses those, who are unfit. ”

“ Again we set to work cleaning, scrubbing, polishing, and painting, so by the time our friends came crowding aboard, the ship was as neat as a new pin.
The visitors—how glad we were to see them! Only one who has looked danger in the face and realized that there might never be a home-coming in this world, could understand our feelings as our relatives and friends—bless them—came aboard. ”

“ I would seek a kindly boarding-master, and ask him to keep me till I got a ship, paying himself out of my advance. I knew better than to go to the so-called "Sailors' Home." They don't take in hard-up seamen there. It is only a home for those who can pay down for their accommodation. ”

“ Upon setting your foot on shore, you find yourself among five or six infuriated gentlemen, two or three of whom walk backward before you, and all talking at the pitch which is necessary to drown the deepening hiss of the escape-valve and each other’s voices. If you attempt to reason, you have no sooner satisfied the aforesaid six, that your route, your baggage, and your choice of an hotel, are matters in which they cannot be of the slightest assistance to you, than six more take their places, who must be satisfied as well ”

“ I pulled out the slide to which the curtains were attached, in front of one of the berths.
"Nothing could be better than that," replied the gentleman, with enthusiasm. "We are better lodged than we were in that boarding-house. The only fear is that we are intruding." ”

“ People of experience tell awful stories about the miseries of boarding, and boarding-houses, and it is very clearly palpable to us that keepers of boarding-houses could a tale unfold of their own miseries, equal, if not double that of the luckless creatures who board. ”

“ One gets so knocked about in a steamer that baths are impossible; one can only make a hasty toilet at the most, being obliged to hold on to something, or be knocked the while from one end of the cabin to the other; one dines, so to speak, on the balance, with the food ever sliding into one's lap. Our boat danced about throughout the voyage in a most extraordinary manner, which made me think that she had but little cargo. ”

“ Malo, whether by boat or train, through the city walls. The boat lands you directly under the frowning ramparts, and a worthy porter will take your portmanteau and carry it twenty steps to the door of your hotel, just within the gateway of the city—and charge you twenty sous for the job. “A franc, really,” the man with the brass badge tied on his right arm will reply to your query as to whether you have heard aright. ”

“ There was a general dive among the passengers in quest of berths and luggage, while a popping of corks in the saloon proved that more than one bereaved traveller was adopting artificial means for drowning the pangs of separation. I glanced round the deck and took a running inventory of my compagnons de voyage. They presented the usual types met with upon these occasions. There was no striking face among them. I speak as a connoisseur, for faces are a specialty of mine. ”

“ This is the place where schedules said nothing of a boat to convey the tourist across the inland sea—of thirty miles' width—to the railroad on its south shore,—the line which bears on its rolling stock the ominous initials W. A. R, but passes through the most peaceful country nevertheless. Yet our genial host's assurances that such a vessel will come are not to be doubted; and, after a dainty repast, a group sits on the pier, watching ghostly ships and smaller craft emerge from and vanish into the mist. ”

“ The pier was crowded with carriages and men; passengers were arriving and hurrying on board; the vessel’s decks were encumbered with trunks and valises; groups of excursionists, arrayed in unattractive traveling costumes, were moping about in a drizzling rain and looking as droopy and woe-begone as so many molting chickens. ”

“ MORE HINTS FOR HENLEY
(For the use of Visitors, Male and Female)
Take an umbrella to keep off the rain—unopened.
Beware of encouraging burnt-cork minstrels, or incurring their resentment.
Remember, it is not every houseboat that is sufficiently hospitable to afford lunch.
After all, a travel down from town in the train is better than the discomforts of dawn on the river in a houseboat.
Six hours of enforced company is a strong order for the best of friends, sometimes leading to incipient enmity. ”