Mr. Peter Porter, being freed for
the moment from his terror of Colonel Clay, would have felt really
happy, I believe--had it not been for the dispatch-box. He made
friends from the first hour (quite after the fearless old fashion
of the days before Colonel Clay had begun to embitter life for him)
with a nice American doctor and his charming wife, on their way back
to Kentucky. Dr. Elihu Quackenboss--that was his characteristically
American name--had been studying medicine for a year in Vienna, and
was now returning to his native State with a brain close crammed
with all the latest bacteriological and antiseptic discoveries. His
wife, a pretty and piquant little American, with a tip-tilted nose
and the quaint sharpness of her countrywomen, amused Charles not a
little. The funny way in which she would make room for him by her
side on the bench on deck, and say, with a sweet smile, "You sit
right here, Mr. Porter; the sun's just elegant," delighted and
flattered him. He was proud to find out that female attention was
not always due to his wealth and title; and that plain Mr. Porter
could command on his merits the same amount of blandishments as Sir
Charles Vandrift, the famous millionaire, on his South African
celebrity.

During the whole of that voyage, it was Mrs. Quackenboss here, and
Mrs. Quackenboss there, and Mrs. Quackenboss the other place, till,
for Amelia's sake, I was glad she was not on board to witness it.
Long before we sighted Sandy Hook, I will admit, I was fairly sick
of Charles's two-stringed harp--Mrs. Quackenboss and the
dispatch-box.

Mrs. Quackenboss, it turned out, was an amateur artist, and she
painted Sir Charles, on calm days on deck, in all possible
attitudes. She seemed to find him a most attractive model.

The doctor, too, was a precious clever fellow. He knew something of
chemistry--and of most other subjects, including, as I gathered, the
human character. For he talked to Charles about various ideas of
his, with which he wished to "liven up folks in Kentucky a bit," on
his return, till Charles conceived the highest possible regard for
his intelligence and enterprise. "That's a go-ahead fellow, Sey!"
he remarked to me one day. "Has the right sort of grit in him!
Those Americans are the men. Wish I had a round hundred of them on
my works in South Africa!"

That idea seemed to grow upon him. He was immensely taken with it.
He had lately dismissed one of his chief superintendents at the
C