Whether or not Cupid had discharged his artillery at the young ladies,
we cannot say, for they betrayed no evidence of having been wounded. In
their case, he must either have missed his aim, or driven his shafts
home with such vigour, that they were buried out of sight altogether in
their tender hearts. It is probable that not one member of that
miscellaneous company gave a thought at that time to the wounded men,
except the wounded men themselves, so absorbing is the love of food!
The wounded were, however, sharp-set in all respects. They at once
descried each other's condition, and, instead of manifesting sympathy
with each other, were, strange to say, filled with intense jealousy.
This at least is true of the younger men. Lawrence, being somewhat
older, was more secretive and self-possessed.

At first Captain Wopper, having declined a dish of cauliflower because
it was presented _alone_, and having afterwards accepted a mutton chop
_alone_, with feelings of poignant regret that he had let the
cauliflower go by, was too busy to observe what the heathen-mythological
youngster was doing. Indeed, at most times, the said youngster might
have discharged a whole quiver of arrows into the Captain's eyes without
his being aware of the attack; but, at the present time, the Captain, as
the reader is aware, was up to the eyes in a plot in which Cupid's aid
was necessary; he had, as it were, invoked the fat child's presence.
When, therefore, he had got over the regrets about the cauliflower, and
had swallowed the mutton-chop, he began to look about him--to note the
converse that passed between the young men, and the frequent glances
they cast at the young women.

It was not the first time that the Captain had, so to speak, kept his
weather-eye open in regard to the affection which he had made up his
mind must now have been awakened in the breasts of George Lawrence and
Emma Gray; but hitherto his hopes, although sanguine, had not received
encouragement. Though polite and respectful to each other, they were by
no means tender; altogether, they acted quite differently from what the
Captain felt that he would have done in similar circumstances. A
suspicion had even crossed the poor seaman's mind that Emma was in love
with her handsome and rattling cousin Lewis; but anxiety on this head
was somewhat allayed by other and conflicting circumstances, such as
occasional remarks by Lewis, to the effect that Emma was a goose, or a