Chapter 62

There are no people who are quite so vulgar as the over-refined ones.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

We sailed from Calcutta toward the end of March; stopped a day at Madras;
two or three days in Ceylon; then sailed westward on a long flight for
Mauritius. From my diary:

April 7. We are far abroad upon the smooth waters of the Indian Ocean,
now; it is shady and pleasant and peaceful under the vast spread of the
awnings, and life is perfect again--ideal.

The difference between a river and the sea is, that the river looks
fluid, the sea solid--usually looks as if you could step out and walk on
it.

The captain has this peculiarity--he cannot tell the truth in a plausible
way. In this he is the very opposite of the austere Scot who sits midway
of the table; he cannot tell a lie in an unplausible way. When the
captain finishes a statement the passengers glance at each other
privately, as who should say, "Do you believe that?" When the Scot
finishes one, the look says, "How strange and interesting." The whole
secret is in the manner and method of the two men. The captain is a
little shy and diffident, and he states the simplest fact as if he were a
little afraid of it, while the Scot delivers himself of the most
abandoned lie with such an air of stern veracity that one is forced to
believe it although one knows it isn't so. For instance, the Scot told
about a pet flying-fish he once owned, that lived in a little fountain in
his conservatory, and supported itself by catching birds and frogs and
rats in the neighboring fields. It was plain that no one at the table
doubted this statement.

By and by, in the course of some talk about custom-house annoyances, the
captain brought out the following simple everyday incident, but through
his infirmity of style managed to tell it in such a way that it got no
credence. He said:

"I went ashore at Naples one voyage when I was in that trade, and
stood around helping my passengers, for I could speak a little
Italian. Two or three times, at intervals, the officer asked me if
I had anything dutiable about me, and seemed more and more put out
and disappointed every time I told him no. Finally a passenger whom
I had helped through asked me to come out and take something. I
thanked him, but excused myself, saying I had taken a whisky just
before I came ashore.

"It was a fatal admission. The officer at once made me pay sixpence
import-duty on the whisky-just from ship to shore, you see; and he
fined me L5 for not declaring the goods, another L5 for falsely
denying that I had anything dutiable about me, also L5 for
concealing the goods, and L50 for smuggling, which is the maximum
penalty for unlawfully