und
themselves on board the good ship _Lapwing_, ploughing their way through
the billows of the broad Atlantic Ocean bound for the sunny isles of the
Antipodes.

Wheels within wheels--worlds within worlds--seems to be the order of
nature everywhere. Someone has written, with more of truth than
elegance--

"Big fleas have little fleas upon their legs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas--and so _ad infinitum_."

One's native land is to millions of people the world in which their
thoughts centre, and by which they are circumscribed. A farmer's
homestead is the world to him, and one of the farmer's cheeses contains
a mighty world in itself. But the most complete, compact, and exclusive
world in existence, perhaps, is a ship at sea--especially an emigrant
ship--for here we find an epitome of the great world itself. Here may
be seen, in small compass, the operations of love and hate, of wisdom
and stupidity, of selfishness and self-sacrifice, of pride, passion,
coarseness, urbanity, and all the other virtues and vices which tend to
make the world at large--a mysterious compound of heaven and hell.

Wherever men and women--not to mention children--are crowded into small
space, friction ensues, and the inevitable result is moral electricity,
positive and negative--chiefly positive! Influences naturally follow,
pleasant and unpleasant--sometimes explosions, which call for the
interference of the captain or officer in charge of the deck at the time
being.

For instance, Tomlin is a fiery but provident man, and has provided
himself with a deck-chair--a most important element of comfort on a long
voyage. Sopkin is a big sulky and heedless man, and has provided
himself with no such luxury. A few days after leaving port Sopkin finds
Tomlin's chair on deck, empty, and, being ignorant of social customs at
sea, seats himself thereon. Tomlin, coming on deck, observes the fact,
and experiences sudden impulses in his fiery spirit. The electricity is
at work. If it were allowable to venture on mental analysis, we might
say that Tomlin's sense of justice is violated. It is not fair that he
should be expected to spend money in providing comforts for any man,
much less for a man who carelessly neglects to provide them for himself.
His sense of propriety is shocked, for Sopkin has taken possession
without asking leave. His self-esteem is hurt, for, although Sopkin
knows it is his chair, he sits there doggedly,