ed longingly at the barrel,
but saw no rest for his foot there, and turned pensively away to seek
another barrel. He wandered here and there, but without result. Nobody
sat upon a barrel, as is the custom of the idle in other lands, yet
all the isolated barrels were humanly occupied. Whosoever had a foot
to spare put it on a barrel, if all the places on it were not already
taken. The habits of all peoples are determined by their circumstances.
The Bermudians lean upon barrels because of the scarcity of lamp-posts.

Many citizens came on board and spoke eagerly to the officers--inquiring
about the Turco-Russian war news, I supposed. However, by listening
judiciously I found that this was not so. They said, "What is the price
of onions?" or, "How's onions?" Naturally enough this was their first
interest; but they dropped into the war the moment it was satisfied.

We went ashore and found a novelty of a pleasant nature: there were
no hackmen, hacks, or omnibuses on the pier or about it anywhere, and
nobody offered his services to us, or molested us in any way. I said it
was like being in heaven. The Reverend rebukingly and rather pointedly
advised me to make the most of it, then. We knew of a boarding-house,
and what we needed now was somebody to pilot us to it. Presently
a little barefooted colored boy came along, whose raggedness was
conspicuously not Bermudian. His rear was so marvelously bepatched with
colored squares and triangles that one was half persuaded he had got it
out of an atlas. When the sun struck him right, he was as good to follow
as a lightning-bug. We hired him and dropped into his wake. He piloted
us through one picturesque street after another, and in due course
deposited us where we belonged. He charged nothing for his map, and but
a trifle for his services: so the Reverend doubled it. The little chap
received the money with a beaming applause in his eye which plainly
said, "This man's an onion!"

We had brought no letters of introduction; our names had been misspelled
in the passenger-list; nobody knew whether we were honest folk or
otherwise. So we were expecting to have a good private time in case
there was nothing in our general aspect to close boarding-house doors
against us. We had no trouble. Bermuda has had but little experience of
rascals, and is not suspicious. We got large, cool, well-lighted rooms
on a second floor, overlooking a bloomy display of flowers and flowering
shrubscalia and a