MARK TWAIN

mensc sign that all can read: no charge for medical at-
tendance whatever—put it so all can read it."

I told the captain this morning that the fear of doc-
tor's bills was one chief reason why the steerage passen-
gers were concealing their illness till the last moment.

Jan, ;, 2 P.M. As the boys come to my room, one after
another (I am abed), I observe a marked change in their
demeanor during the last half hour—they report that the
minister, only sick an hour, or maybe two, is already very
low—that a hospital has been titled up in the steerage
and he has been removed thither.

Verily the ship is fast becoming a floating hospital her-
self—not an hour passes but brings its fresh sensation,
its new disaster—its melancholy tidings.

When I think of poor Shape and the preacher, both so
well when I saw them yesterday evening, 1 realize that I
myself may be dead tomorrow.

Since the last two hours all laughter, all levity, has
ceased in the ship—a settled gloom is upon the faces of
the passengers.

Jan. 5, 4 P.M. The unfortunate minister is dying—he
has bidden us all good-bye and now lies barely breathing.
His name is Rev. J. (5. Fackler, and he wat* on his way
to the States to get his wife and family.

The passengers are fearfully exercised, and well they
may be, poor devils, for we are about to see our fifth
death in five days, and the sixth of the voyage. The
surgeon, a most excellent young man, a Mason and a
first-rate physician and one of considerable practice, has
done all he could to allay their fear by telling them he has
all the medicines he wants, that the disease is only a
virulent sort of diarrhea, cholera morbus, etc.

Discovering that he was a Mason, I took him aside and
asked him a plain statement for myself alone, and told