Tramp Royale

Tramp Royale Read Online Free PDF

Book: Tramp Royale Read Online Free PDF
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Colorado has dozens of them. But don't write to me asking for directions; get hold of Hertha Feyock instead. She will tell you how to get there and where you can hire pack mules for the trip. Or next time try Mars.
    Mrs. Feyock finally put together the following itinerary. (See the map in the end papers, unless they have tucked it in somewhere else.)
    Colorado Springs to New Orleans, train or planeNew Orleans to Valparaiso, Chile, by American freighter, via the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, through the Panama Canal to the Pacific, and with numerous coastal stops on the west coast of South AmericaValparaiso to Santiago, Chile, by trainSantiago to Buenos Aires, Argentina, by planeBuenos Aires to Capetown, Union of South Africa, by Dutch cargo liner, with stops up the east coast of South AmericaAcross Africa by local transportation, plane, train, et cetera; rejoin ship at a west African portAcross the Indian Ocean to Singapore, with island and west African stopsSingapore to Australia, via Indonesia (ah, Bali, beautiful Bali-more about that later)Australia to New Zealand by passenger liner
    The itinerary came to a sudden stop at New Zealand. Mrs. Feyock was still trying to book us by ship from New Zealand to our west coast at the time we left. No passenger ship was to be had, but it seemed to be just a matter of patience to book us on a freighter-a long, slow idyllic voyage, calling at mystic islands of the South Seas, all with names ending in vowels and sounding like endearments in an exotic tongue. I could see myself sitting on the fantail of such a ship, strumming on an old beachcomber and idly sipping a planter's punch, while the sun sank in the west and the colorful exotic natives gathered on the shore in their colorful exotic native costumes and bade the ship Aloha with their colorful exotic native songs.
    I would feel her screw churning under me and the water, warm as new milk and clear as champagne, chuckling against the plates of the old rust bucket. After supper, served by boys who spoke only Pidgin but knew telepathically what you wanted before you knew yourself, the Captain and I would smoke a pipe on the bridge and swap yarns-then bed, for a night's deep, unworried sleep.
    I began to feel like a Somerset Maugham character.
    The only nibble we got was from the Matson Lines; all the others were "sorry" for one reason or another. The Matson Lines offered us "dormitory accommodations"-Ticky in a women's dormitory, me in one for men.
    Ticky gasped. "What are those Matson Line people? Missionaries?"
    We will omit my answer.
    "Maybe we should explain to them that we are married. They may have me mixed up with Sadie Thompson." She scowled and then smiled. "Tell 'em 'yes' but that you'll take the bunk in the ladies' dorm and I'll take the one with the men."
    "Okay, it's a deal."
    "You're entirely too agreeable about it. Anyhow, they wouldn't let us. Missionaries! Well, I'm not going to do it and that's flat. Six weeks cooped up with a bunch of old biddies, watching them get in and out of their corsets and listening to their snores at night, is not my idea of a pleasure cruise. It reminds me of those old slave ships, where the mate would stick his head down into the hold the middle of every watch and tell them all to turn over at once. No!"
    We both thought the dormitory plan was obscene and indecent, as well as having a flavor of Botany Bay about it that did not belong with paid passage. But our decision forced us to leave open the matter of passage back to the States. We told ourselves cheerfully that it would be easy to arrange in New Zealand, right on the spot. After all, ships left from New Zealand every day; we would make the rounds of the home offices and pick one that suited us. Our trouble was that we were trying to book passage from ten thousand miles away for a date six months off whereas no ocean freighter has a firm schedule that far ahead.
    "Besides," I added, "New Zealand is supposed to be one of the nicest
Read Online Free Pdf

Similar Books

Butch Cassidy

W. C. Jameson

The Silver Bullet

Jim DeFelice

The Gumshoe Diaries

Nicholas Stanton

Intimate Persuasions

Nicole Morgan

Second Watch

J.A. Jance

Never Smile at Strangers

Jennifer Minar-Jaynes

My Natural History

Simon Barnes

Second Chances

Clare Atling

The Secret Arrangement

Danielle Greyson