﻿LONG ISLAND SOUND 

“Do you want a state room?” purred the polite purser, sympathetically. 
“No sir, I do not––I expect to swim ashore before morning . . .” Hence it is that I am defying sleep and writing an experimental article just to show folks what a great writer can do when he’s dog tired––besides, I do all my best swimming when I’m awake––not that I objected drawning––drowning is all right in a way––but I most certainly do object to drowning in one of those cubby holes they call state rooms. 
When I drown I want lots of room and plenty of water . . . 
I see by the paper, “Poet Drowns At Cape Cod”––as good a place as any, and I unhesitatingly recommend that place to Walt Mason and Edgar Guest––why, there you can drown in three different directions not counting straight down––for a poet, he sure showed a live consideration for the feelings of humanity, for which he should be credited and for which the good people will, no doubt, be duly and monumentally grateful. But there is another fly in our blue-ointment––the street lights of Long Island Sound are too far apart––we can’t see where we’re going––and for the life of me I can’t see how those kids up on the pilot-coop can keep the old tub in the wet places––why, I’ll swear by the bones of our illustrious ancesters that a couple of times we came near running into a drugstore––! Won’t say I saw the Gem Safety Razor sign but I most certainly did see the red and green torts in the window and the druggist’s bald-pate glistering like an evening star. 
Of course, I went up on the cyclone or tornado deck right away and examined the life boats––in fact, it was my idea to “lie down in one of ‘em––purely as a shelter against the wind––I don’t want people to think I was stealing a march on the women and children. Unfortunately there was no straw in ‘em––nothing but cold, rusty, galvanized iron––and me with rheumatism of the most despicable type. 
One of the boats, No. 2, starboard, would have been an ideal crib to flop in, it occillated in its “V” blocks the tune of the vibrations of the ship––it soon would have lulled my dull senses to sleep, but then!! a dreadful dread gripped my vitals–– sposing the “V” blocks have chafed the old iron sides thru? And if I flounder in there I might fall thru one of the holes? 
Lord have mercy––and its rusty keel looks as if some one has squirted tobacco juice all over it!––if the life-boat looks like that, in the open––I wonder how the bottom of the ship looks? And I wonder and wonder what a steamboat inspector looks like. 
Has anyone ever sten one? 
WHEN––FOR GOD’S SAKE! AND WHERE! 
P. S. Let the inspection department send me a check for this month––I saw in ten minutes what has taken INSPECTORS years to MISS.