easonable an individual was obviously
absurd, and I therefore dismissed him and thought nothing more about his
complaints.

This, however, was not the matter of which I have spoken as gradually
obtruding itself upon my attention, although, had I only been able to
guess it, the two were not unconnected. What I noticed, almost from the
first moment of boarding the _Mercury_, without attaching any particular
importance to it, was that this man Wilde and a few of the other male
emigrants were in the habit of spending practically the whole of the
second dogwatch--which, in fine weather at all events, is usually a
period of idleness and recreation for a ship's crew--on the forecastle-
head, smoking and chatting animatedly with the forecastle hands; while
at other times the ex-schoolmaster--as Wilde actually proved to be--
seemed eternally engaged in earnest discussion with his fellow
emigrants. I often wondered idly what the man could possibly find to
talk about so incessantly; but usually found a sufficiently satisfactory
explanation in the reflection that, being a man of education, he would
naturally take pleasure in extracting the ideas of others, and also
probably in correcting them according to his own notions. He was
evidently very fond of talking; and I frequently amused myself by
watching the impassioned earnestness and the eloquent gestures with
which he would hold forth upon the subject--whatever it might be--that
happened to be under discussion. I soon found that Polson and Tudsbery,
the boatswain and carpenter of the ship, apparently found more pleasure
in spending the second dogwatch on the forecastle with their shipmates
and the emigrants than they did in promenading the poop with me; but
this was not surprising, for not only were they both very illiterate
men, but it quickly became apparent that they and I had scarcely a
single interest or idea in common, and we were consequently often hard
put to it to find a topic of congenial conversation; indeed, in the
course of a few days, without the slightest ill-feeling on either side,
our communications became almost exclusively restricted to matters
connected with the business of the ship.

Looking back, from the summit of a matured experience, as I now can,
upon that first fortnight aboard the _Mercury_, I often feel astonished
that I never, for a single instant, caught the faintest premonition of
what was looming ahead; for I can recall plenty of hints and
su