settled down and built unto themselves
dwellings as nearly like those they had left behind them as it was
possible with the materials to their hands, their descendants seemingly
keeping up the habit of building in like manner. If this is not the
case, then, most certainly, the old buildings of two centuries ago have
lasted uncommonly well!

Fritz waited to go ashore until his friend the deck hand should be
disengaged. He had seen him soon after they reached the steamer's
wharf; and, again, a second time when the crowd of passengers, with the
exception of himself, brought up from New York had all disembarked--the
man telling him he was just going to "clean himself down a bit," and he
would then be ready to take him to a decent place to stop, where he
would not be charged too exorbitantly for his board.

And so Fritz waited on the steamer's deck alongside the quay, gazing
with much interest at the scene around him.

There were not quite so many ships as his casual acquaintance had led
him to expect when he told him he would "see heaps up thaar"; but,
still, the port evidently had a large import trade, for several big
vessels were moored in the harbour and others were loading up at the
wharves or discharging cargo, the latter being in the majority, while
lots of smaller sailing craft and tiny boats were flying about,
transporting goods and bales of merchandise to other places further up
the river.

He had hardly, however, seen half what was in view when some one tapped
him on the shoulder, and he turned round.

It was his friend the deck hand of the red flannel shirt and blue check
cotton trousers; but, a wonderful transformation had taken place in his
dress!

Clad now in an irreproachable suit of black, with a broad, grey felt hat
on his head, the man looked quite the gentleman he had represented
himself as once being. His manners, too, seemed to have changed with
his outer apparel, the off-hand boorishness of the whilom "deck hand"
having vanished with his cast-off raiment.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, sir," he said to Fritz, still,
however, with the strongly accentuated "sir" he had noticed in those who
had spoken to him at New York, "but I've hurried up as quickly as I
could. Shall we now go ashore?"

"Certainly," said Fritz, "although you've not detained me, I assure you.
I have had plenty to look at during the little time I've been waiting."

"Ah, you've not seen half of Providence yet," repl