he said one night, exhibiting a sixpence, "and yet I stood
myself a bottle of beer before I went to bed yesterday. And as for
tobacco, I have fifteen sticks of it." That was fairly successful
indeed; yet a man of his superiority, and with a less obtrusive policy,
might, who knows? have got the length of half a crown. A man who prides
himself upon persuasion should learn the persuasive faculty of silence,
above all as to his own misdeeds. It is only in the farce and for
dramatic purposes that Scapin enlarges on his peculiar talents to the
world at large.

Scapin is perhaps a good name for this clever, unfortunate Alick; for at
the bottom of all his misconduct there was a guiding sense of humour
that moved you to forgive him. It was more than half as a jest that he
conducted his existence. "Oh, man," he said to me once with unusual
emotion, like a man thinking of his mistress, "I would give up anything
for a lark."

It was in relation to his fellow-stowaway that Alick showed the best,
or perhaps I should say the only good, points of his nature. "Mind you,"
he said suddenly, changing his tone, "mind you, that's a good boy. He
wouldn't tell you a lie. A lot of them think he is a scamp because his
clothes are ragged, but he isn't; he's as good as gold." To hear him,
you become aware that Alick himself had a taste for virtue. He thought
his own idleness and the other's industry equally becoming. He was no
more anxious to insure his own reputation as a liar than to uphold the
truthfulness of his companion; and he seemed unaware of what was
incongruous in his attitude, and was plainly sincere in both characters.

It was not surprising that he should take an interest in the Devonian,
for the lad worshipped and served him in love and wonder. Busy as he
was, he would find time to warn Alick of an approaching officer, or even
to tell him that the coast was clear, and he might slip off and smoke a
pipe in safety. "Tom," he once said to him, for that was the name which
Alick ordered him to use, "if you don't like going to the galley, I'll
go for you. You ain't used to this kind of thing, you ain't. But I'm a
sailor; and I can understand the feelings of any fellow, I can." Again,
he was hard up, and casting about for some tobacco, for he was not so
liberally used in this respect as others perhaps less worthy, when Alick
offered him the half of one of his fifteen sticks. I think, for my part,
he might have increased the offer to a w