lt themselves
missing the steamer, and were deterred only by an amiable modesty from
dispensing with his attendance and starting on a hasty scramble to the
wharf. But when at last he appeared, and the carriage plunged into the
purlieus of Broadway, they jolted and jostled to such good purpose that
they reached the huge white vessel while the bell for departure was
still ringing and the absorption of passengers still active. It was
indeed, as Mr. Westgate had said, a big boat, and his leadership in the
innumerable and interminable corridors and cabins, with which he seemed
perfectly acquainted, and of which anyone and everyone appeared to have
the entree, was very grateful to the slightly bewildered voyagers. He
showed them their stateroom--a spacious apartment, embellished with gas
lamps, mirrors en pied, and sculptured furniture--and then, long after
they had been intimately convinced that the steamer was in motion and
launched upon the unknown stream that they were about to navigate, he
bade them a sociable farewell.

"Well, goodbye, Lord Lambeth," he said; "goodbye, Mr. Percy Beaumont. I
hope you'll have a good time. Just let them do what they want with you.
I'll come down by-and-by and look after you."

The young Englishmen emerged from their cabin and amused themselves with
wandering about the immense labyrinthine steamer, which struck them as
an extraordinary mixture of a ship and a hotel. It was densely crowded
with passengers, the larger number of whom appeared to be ladies and
very young children; and in the big saloons, ornamented in white and
gold, which followed each other in surprising succession, beneath the
swinging gaslight, and among the small side passages where the Negro
domestics of both sexes assembled with an air of philosophic leisure,
everyone was moving to and fro and exchanging loud and familiar
observations. Eventually, at the instance of a discriminating black, our
young men went and had some "supper" in a wonderful place arranged like
a theater, where, in a gilded gallery, upon which little boxes appeared
to open, a large orchestra was playing operatic selections, and, below,
people were handing about bills of fare, as if they had been programs.
All this was sufficiently curious; but the agreeable thing, later, was
to sit out on one of the great white decks of the steamer, in the warm
breezy darkness, and, in the vague starlight, to make out the line of
low, mysterious coast. The young Engl