he gathering
crowd, "Move on, if you please, sir; move on." Obey is the word. Kind
friends are left behind, the kettle hisses, the iron horse snorts, the
Hudson is passed, New York is gained, the journey is behind me, bread,
butter, and Bohea before me. "Go on," says Time. The Charleston steamer,
"James Adger," is bursting to be off. Introduced to the agents, they
introduced me to the skipper. The skipper seems to think I am his
father; he insists upon my occupying his cabin--a jolly room, big enough
to polka in--fifteen feet square. Thanks, most excellent skipper, "may
your shadow never be less"--it is substantial enough now. Do you ask why
I go to New York from Philadelphia to reach Charleston? The reply is
simple:--to avoid the purgatory of an American railway, and to enjoy the
life-giving breezes "that sweep o'er the ocean wave." The skipper was
a regular trump; the service was clean, and we fed like fighting-cocks.
The weather was fine, the ship a clipping good one, passengers few, but
with just enough 'bacco-juice flying about the decks to remind me where
I was.

One of our company was a charming rarity in his way. He was an Irish
Yankee, aged eighty-three. A more perfect Paddy never existed; and so,
of course, he talked about fighting, and began detailing to me the
various frays in which "we whipt the Britishers." By way of chaffing
him, I said, "No wonder; they were Anglo-Saxon blood, brought their
courage from England, and were not only fighting at home, but with a
halter round their necks." The old veteran got furious, cursed England
and the Saxon blood, from Harold to the present hour; he then proved to
his own satisfaction that all the great men in America, and all the
soldiers, were Celts. "It was the Celts, sir, that whipt the Britishers;
and, ould as I am, sure I'd like to take 20,000 men over to the ould
counthree, and free it from the bloodthirsty villins, the Saxon brutes."
If poor O'Brien had had half the fire of this old Yankee Paddy, he never
would have been caught snoozing among the old widow's cabbages. I really
thought the old gentleman would have burst outright, or collapsed from
reaction; but it passed over like a white squall, and left the original
octogenarian calm behind. The darkness of the third evening has closed
in upon us, the struggling stream is bellowing for release, hawsers are
flying about, boys running from them, and men after them; the good
"James Adger" is coquetting about with