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 whole one, or perhaps a pair of them,

and not lived to regret his liberality. But the Devonian refused.
'No,' he said, 'you're a stowaway like me; I won't take it from you,

I'll take it from some one who's not down on his luck.'
It was notable in this generous lad that he was strongly under the

influence of sex. If a woman passed near where he was working, his
eyes lit up, his hand paused, and his mind wandered instantly to

other thoughts. It was natural that he should exercise a fascination
proportionally strong upon women. He begged, you will remember, from

women only, and was never refused. Without wishing to explain away
the charity of those who helped him, I cannot but fancy he may have

owed a little to his handsome face, and to that quick, responsive
nature, formed for love, which speaks eloquently through all

disguises, and can stamp an impression in ten minutes' talk or an
exchange of glances. He was the more dangerous in that he was far

from bold, but seemed to woo in spite of himself, and with a soft and
pleading eye. Ragged as he was, and many a scarecrow is in that

respect more comfortably furnished, even on board he was not without
some curious admirers.

There was a girl among the passengers, a tall, blonde, handsome,
strapping Irishwoman, with a wild, accommodating eye, whom Alick had

dubbed Tommy, with that transcendental appropriateness that defies
analysis. One day the Devonian was lying for warmth in the upper

stoke-hole, which stands open on the deck, when Irish Tommy came
past, very neatly attired, as was her custom.

'Poor fellow,' she said, stopping, 'you haven't a vest.'
'No,' he said; 'I wish I 'ad.'

Then she stood and gazed on him in silence, until, in his
embarrassment, for he knew not how to look under this scrutiny, he

pulled out his pipe and began to fill it with tobacco.
'Do you want a match?' she asked. And before he had time to reply,

she ran off and presently returned with more than one.
That was the beginning and the end, as far as our passage is

concerned, of what I will make bold to call this love-affair. There
are many relations which go on to marriage and last during a

lifetime, in which less human feeling is engaged than in this scene
of five minutes at the stoke-hole.

Rigidly speaking, this would end the chapter of the stowaways; but in
a larger sense of the word I have yet more to add. Jones had

discovered and pointed out to me a young woman who was remarkable
among her fellows for a pleasing and interesting air. She was poorly

clad, to the verge, if not over the line, of disrespectability, with
a ragged old jacket and a bit of a sealskin cap no bigger than your

fist; but her eyes, her whole expression, and her manner, even in
ordinary moments, told of a true womanly nature, capable of love,

anger, and devotion. She had a look, too, of refinement, like one
who might have been a better lady than most, had she been allowed the

opportunity. When alone she seemed preoccupied and sad; but she was
not often alone; there was usually by her side a heavy, dull, gross

man in rough clothes, chary of speech and gesture - not from caution,
but poverty of disposition; a man like a ditcher, unlovely and

uninteresting; whom she petted and tended and waited on with her eyes
as if he had been Amadis of Gaul. It was strange to see this hulking

fellow dog-sick, and this delicate, sad woman caring for him. He
seemed, from first to last, insensible of her caresses and

attentions, and she seemed unconscious of his insensibility. The
Irish husband, who sang his wife to sleep, and this Scottish girl

serving her Orson, were the two bits of human nature that most
appealed to me throughout the voyage.

On the Thursday before we arrived, the tickets were collected; and
soon a rumour began to go round the vessel; and this girl, with her

bit of sealskin cap, became the centre of whispering and pointed
fingers. She also, it was said, was a stowaway of a sort; for she

was on board with neither ticket nor money; and the man with whom she
travelled was the father of a family, who had left wife and children

to be hers. The ship's officers discouraged the story, which may
therefore have been a story and no more; but it was believed in the

steerage, and the poor girl had to encounter many curious eyes from
that day forth.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND REVIEW
Travel is of two kinds; and this voyage of mine across the ocean

combined both. 'Out of my country and myself I go,' sings the old
poet: and I was not only travelling out of my country in latitude

and longitude, but out of myself in diet, associates, and
consideration. Part of the interest and a great deal of the

amusement flowed, at least to me, from this novel situation in the
world.

I found that I had what they call fallen in life with absolute
success and verisimilitude. I was taken for a steerage passenger; no

one seemed surprised that I should be so; and there was nothing but
the brass plate between decks to remind me that I had once been a

gentleman. In a former book, describing a former journey, I
expressed some wonder that I could be readily and naturally taken for

a pedlar, and explained the accident by the difference of language
and manners between England and France. I must now take a humbler

view; for here I was among my own countrymen, somewhat roughly clad
to be sure, but with every advantage of speech and manner; and I am

bound to confess that I passed for nearly anything you please except
an educated gentleman. The sailors called me 'mate,' the officers

addressed me as 'my man,' my comrades accepted me without hesitation
for a person of their own character and experience, but with some

curious information. One, a mason himself, believed I was a mason;
several, and among these at least one of the seaman, judged me to be

a petty officer in the American navy; and I was so often set down for
a practical engineer that at last I had not the heart to deny it.

From all these guesses I drew one conclusion, which told against the
insight of my companions. They might be close observers in their own

way, and read the manners in the face; but it was plain that they did
not extend their observation to the hands.

To the saloon passengers also I sustained my part without a hitch.
It is true I came little in their way; but when we did encounter,

there was no recognition in their eye, although I confess I sometimes
courted it in silence. All these, my inferiors and equals, took me,

like the transformed monarch in the story, for a mere common, human
man. They gave me a hard, dead look, with the flesh about the eye

kept unrelaxed.
With the women this surprised me less, as I had already experimented

on the sex by going abroad through a suburban part of London simply
attired in a sleeve-waistcoat. The result was curious. I then

learned for the first time, and by the exhaustive process, how much
attention ladies are accustomed to bestow on all male creatures of

their own station; for, in my humble rig, each one who went by me
caused me a certain shock of surprise and a sense of something

wanting. In my normal circumstances, it appeared every young lady
must have paid me some tribute of a glance; and though I had often