. There were ladies pretty, and
ladies plain, as well as grave and gay. Fat and funny ones we had, also
lean ones and sad. The wise and foolish virgins were represented. So
too were smokers and drinkers; and not a few earnest, loving, and
lovable, men and women.

A tendency had been gaining on me of late to believe that, after passing
middle-life, a man cannot make new and enthusiastic friendships. Never
was I more mistaken. It is now my firm conviction that men may and do
make friendships of the closest kind up to the end of their career. Of
course the new friends do not, and cannot, take the place of the old.
It seems to me that they serve a higher purpose, and, by enabling one to
realise the difference between the old and the new, draw the cords of
ancient friendship tighter. At all events, you may depend upon it, my
dear Periwinkle, that no new friend shall ever tumble _you_ out of the
niche which you occupy in my bosom!

But be this as it may, it is a fact that in my berth--which held four,
and was full all the voyage--there was a tall, dark, powerful,
middle-aged man, an Englishman born in Cape Colony, [see note 3], who
had been "home" for a trip, and was on his way out again to his African
home on the great Karroo. This man raised within me feelings of disgust
when I first saw him in the dim light of our berth, because he was big,
and I knew that a big man requires more air to fill his lungs than a
little one, and there was no superabundant air in our berth--quite the
reverse. This man occupied the top berth opposite to mine. Each
morning as I awoke my eyes fell on his beard of iron-grey, and I gazed
at his placid countenance till he awoke--or I found his placid
countenance gazing at me when _I_ awoke. From gazing to nodding in
recognition is an easy step in ordinary circumstances, but not when
one's head is on one's pillow. We therefore passed at once, without the
ceremony of nodding, into a quiet "good morning." Although reticent, he
gradually added a smile to the "good morning," and I noticed that his
smile was a peculiarly pleasant one. Steps that succeed the "first" are
generally easy. From disliking this man--not on personal, but purely
selfish grounds--I came to like him; then to love him. I have reason to
believe that the attachment was mutual. His name--why should I not
state it? I don't think he would object--is Hobson.

In the bunk below Hobson lay a young Wesleyan minister. He wa