otel manager.

"Well, I brought this small package from Bremen for a gentleman who came
out passenger with us some time ago; he left it in Bremen--wanted me to
fetch it out when the ship returned--here it is."

"What do you want to leave it here for? We know nothing about the man,
sir."

"You don't? Well, you ought to, for the gentleman put up here, and told
me he'd be around when we got into port again. He was a deuced clever
fellow, and you ought to have kept the reckoning of such a man," said
the seaman.

"Ha, ha! we keep so many clever fellows," said he of the hotel, "that
they are no novelties, sir."

"I wonder then," said the seaman, "you do not imitate some of them, for
there's no danger of the world's getting crowded with a crew of good
men."

"If you have any business with us we shall attend to it, sir, but we
want none of your impertinence!"

"O, you don't? Well, Mister, I've business aboard of your craft; if
you're the commodore, I'd like you to see that my friend Collins is
piped up, or that this package be stowed away where he could come afoul
of it. His name is Collins; here it is in black and white, on the
parcel, and here's where I was to drop it."

One of the "understrappers" overhearing the dispute, whispered his
dignified superior that Mr. Collins, an English gentleman, late from
Bremen, was in the house, whereupon the dignified empressario, turning
to the self-possessed man of the sea, said--

"Ah, well, leave the parcel, leave the parcel; we _suppose_ it's
correct."

"There it is," said the seaman; "commodore, you see that the gentleman
gets it; and I say," says the sailor, pushing back his hat and giving
his breeches a regular sailor twitch, "I wish you'd please to say to the
gentleman, Mr. Collins, you know, that Mr. Brace, first officer of the
Triton, would like to see him aboard, any time he's at leisure."

But in the multiplicity of greater affairs, the hotel gentleman hardly
attempted to listen or attend to the sailor's message, and Mr. Brace,
first officer of the Triton, bore away, muttering to himself--

"These land-crabs mighty apt to put on airs. I'd like to have that
powder monkey in my watch about a week--I'd have him down by the lifts
and braces!"

Let us suppose it to be in the glorious month of October, when the
myriads of travellers by land and ocean are wending their way from the
chilly north towards the sunny south, when the invalid seeks the tropics
in pursuit of