had sworn eternal friendship with a convivial dude from
the saloon, and he made a fine specimen fool of himself for an hour or
so. He never showed his nose for'ard again.

Now and then a passenger would solemnly seek the steward and have a
beer. The steward drew it out of a small keg which lay on its side on a
shelf with a wooden tap sticking out of the end of it--out of the end of
the keg, we mean. The beer tasted like warm but weak vinegar, and cost
sixpence per small glass. The bagman told the steward that he could
not compliment him on the quality of his liquor, but the steward said
nothing. He did not even seem interested--only bored. He had heard the
same remark often before, no doubt. He was a fat, solemn steward--not
formal, but very reticent--unresponsive. He looked like a man who had
conducted a religious conservative paper once and failed, and had then
gone into the wholesale produce line, and failed again, and finally
got his present billet through the influence of his creditors and two
clergymen. He might have been a sociable fellow, a man about town, even
a gay young dog, and a radical writer before he was driven to accept
the editorship of the aforesaid periodical. He probably came of a "good
English family." He was now, very likely, either a rigid Presbyterian
or an extreme freethinker. He thought a lot, anyway, and looked as if he
knew a lot too--too much for words, in fact.

We took a turn on deck before turning in, and heard two men arguing
about the way in which the _Dunbar_ was wrecked.

The commercial travellers, the jeweller, and one or two new chums who
were well provided with clothing undressed deliberately and retired
ostentatiously in pyjamas, but there were others--men of better
days--who turned in either very early or very late, when the cabin was
quiet, and slipped hurriedly and furtively out of their clothes and
between the blankets, as if they were ashamed of the poverty of their
underwear. It is well that the Lord can see deep down into the hearts of
men, for He has to judge them; it is well that the majority of mankind
cannot, because, if they could, the world would be altogether too
sorrowful to live in; and we do not think the angels can either, else
they would not be happy--if they could and were they would not be angels
any longer--they would be devils. Study it out on a slate.

We turned in feeling comfortably dismal, and almost wishing that we had
gone down with the _Dunbar_.