His footsteps were surrounded with white fluttering skirts, veils that waved like colored clouds, laughter and trills, Spanish chatter that appeared set to music:--all the frolicsome jargon of a cage of tropical birds.
Ex-presidents of the South American republics,--generals or doctors who were going to Europe to rest,--used to relate to him on the bridge, with Napoleonic gravity, the principal events in their history.

The business men starting out for America confided to him their stupendous plans:--rivers turned from their courses, railroads built across the virgin forests, monstrous electric forces extracted from huge waterfalls varying in breadth, cities vomited from the desert in a few weeks, all the marvels of an adolescent world that desires to realize whatever its youthful imagination may conceive.

He was the demi-urge of this little floating world: he disposed of joy and love as the spirit moved him.
In the scorching evenings around the equator, it was enough for him to give an order to rouse things and beings from their brutish drowsiness.
"Let the music begin, and refreshments be served." And in a few moments dancers would be revolving the whole length of the deck, and smiling lips and eyes would become brilliantly alight with illusion and desire.
Behind him, his praises were always being sounded.

The matrons found him very distinguished.

"It is plain to be seen that he is an exceptional person." Stewards and crew circulated exaggerated accounts of his riches and his studies.