the ship in the same way. He never sought to make friends, had a
thorough contempt for social trifling, and shrugged his shoulders at
the "swagger" of some of the other officers. I think he longed for a
different kind of sea-life, so accustomed had he been to adventurous and
hardy ways. He had entered the Occidental service because he had
fallen in love with a pretty girl, and thought it his duty to become a
"regular," and thus have the chance of seeing her every three months in
London. He had conceived a liking for me, reciprocated on my part; the
more so, because I knew that behind his blunt exterior there was a warm
and manly heart. When he left me I went to my cabin and prepared for
dinner, laughing as I did so at his keen, uncompromising criticism,
which I knew was correct enough; for of all official posts that of
a ship-surgeon is least calculated to make a man take a pride in
existence. At its best, it is assisting in the movement of a panorama;
at its worst, worse than a vegetation. Hungerford's solicitude for
myself, however, was misplaced, because this one voyage would end my
career as ship-surgeon, and, besides, I had not vegetated, but had been
interested in everything that had occurred, humdrum as it was. With
these thoughts, I looked out of the port-hole, to see the shores of
Colombo, Galle Face, and Mount Lavinia fading in the distance, and heard
seven bells--the time for dinner. When I took my seat at the table of
which I was the head, my steward handed to me a slip of paper, saying
that the chief steward had given a new passenger, a lady, the seat at my
right hand, which had been vacated at Colombo. The name on the paper was
"Mrs. Falchion." The seat was still empty, and I wondered if this
was the beautiful passenger who had attracted me and interested the
Intermediate Passenger. I was selfish enough to wish so: and it was so.

We had finished the soup before she entered. The chief steward, with
that anxious civility which beauty can inspire in even so great a
personage, conducted her to her seat beside me. I confess that though I
was at once absorbed in this occurrence, I noticed also that some of the
ladies present smiled significantly when they saw at whose table Mrs.
Falchion was placed, and looked not a little ironically at the purser,
who, as it was known, always tried to get for his table the newest
addition to the passenger list--when it was a pretty woman. I believe
that one or two rude people c