as first-class passengers we could expect to endure the most trying of passages-subsisting in a private suite comprising a bedroom and separate sitting room , decorated in the most gaudy of victorian excesses , with hot and cold running water and electric lighting ; forced to take our evening meals at tables shabbily draped in crisp white linen and decorated with crystal vases laden with fresh flowers every evening , under the great glass dome of the first-class dining saloon ; trapped for hours in the walnut-paneled library with its eight hundred volumes ; or being constantly pestered by the obsessively attentive staff and crew , white-jacketed and always , according to the doctor , at your elbow , ever eager to deliver the most mundane of services .