ite clerk, and walked out.

He had learned the way to the steamboat-wharf; and he had already taken
one brief look at the river and the railway bridge.

"There's the 'Columbia,'" he said, aloud, as he turned a street corner
and came in sight of her. "What a boat! Why, if her nose was at the
Main Street corner, by the Washington Hotel, her rudder would be
half-way across the Cocahutchie!"

He walked the wharf, staring at her from end to end, before he went on
board. He had put Mr. Magruder's note into his pocket without reading
it.

"I won't open it here," he had said then. "There's nothing in it but a
ticket."

He found, however, that he must show the ticket at the gangway, and so
he opened the envelope.

"Three tickets?" he said. "And two are in one piece. This one is for
a stateroom. That's the bunk I'm to sleep in. Hulloo! Supper ticket!
I have supper on board the steamer, do I? Well, I'm not sorry. I'll
have to hurry, too. It's about time for her to start."

Jack went on board, and soon was hunting for his stateroom, almost
bewildered by the rushing crowd in the great saloon.

He had his key, and knew the number, but it seemed that there were
about a thousand of the little doors.

"One hundred and seventy-six is mine," he said; "and I'm going to put
away my satchel and go on deck and see the river. Here it is at last.
Why, it's a kind of little bedroom! It's as good as a floating hotel.
Now I'm all right."

Suddenly he was aware, with a great thrill of pleasure, that the
Columbia was in motion. He left his satchel in a corner, locked the
door of the stateroom behind him, and set out to find his way to the
deck. He went down-stairs and up-stairs, ran against people, and was
run against by them; and it occurred to him that all the passengers
were hunting for something they could not find.

"Looking for staterooms, I guess," he remarked aloud; but he himself
should not have been staring behind him, for at that moment he felt the
whack of a collision, and a pair of heavy arms grasped him.

"What you looks vor yourself, poy? You knocks my breath out! You find
somebody you looks vor--eh?"

The tremendous man who held him was not tall, but very heavy, and had a
broad face and long black beard and shaggy gray eyebrows.

"Beg pardon!" exclaimed Jack, with a glance at a lady holding one of
the man's long arms, and at two other ladies following them.

"You vas got your stateroom?" asked his