only; and advanced
fathers, who, making a virtue of having brought out wife and child for
a holiday, now leave them a good deal to take care of themselves, and
devote all their energies to being pleasant as remotely from them as
circumstances will allow. Roughs, to the number of a dozen or so, mostly
steamboat-runners and their congeners, are of the party, headed by
Flashy Joe. Lobster Bob has set up his oyster-plank in a central
situation. Venders of unfresh-looking refreshments have established
themselves on board; and the bar-keeper, near the forecastle, is
preparing himself for the worst.

By-and-by I noticed a good-looking specimen of Young New York on board,
and was introduced to him by a cigar. He was a handsome boy, with dark,
oval face, and Arabian eyes. The silky black line that just marked the
curve of his upper lip gave promise of a splendid moustache; his closely
crisped black hair was but just visible below the rim of his jaunty
straw hat, the band of which was a tasselled cord of crimson silk; while
his lithe figure was suggested rather than displayed by the waving lines
of his loose brown jacket with tapering _gigot_ sleeves. His low-cut
shirt-collar and narrow silken neck-tie were in the style called
"English," as quite decidedly, also, were his cross-barred trousers of
balloony build; nor, although thus flinging himself for diversion into
the vortex of the lower crowd, had he foregone the luxury of tan-colored
kid gloves and patent-leather shoes. He was a bright boy, and precocious
as a lady-killer; for, already, before we had left far behind us the
pleasant slopes of Bay Ridge, with its peeping villa-parapets of
brown and white, and its umbrageous masses of chromatic green, he
had evidently engaged the affections of an _espiegle_ little
straw-bonnet-maker, who did her hair something like his own, in a
close-curled crop, and had her pretty little person safely shut up in a
high-necked dress.

That young lady had a suitor with her, who was clearly not a sweetheart,
however, by a good deal, but merely a follower tolerated for the day,
and on the score of convenience only. He was a tall, gaunt, pale young
man, with long hands and feet, slouching shoulders and narrow chest,
and a strange, indescribable nullity of expression dwelling upon his
features. He did not appear to be encouraged much by little Straw-Goods,
whose mind was probably occupied with prospective possibilities of being
led out to the fes