r by profession.

As the rolling was not yet very great, we could dine in comfort.
Ephrinell chatted with Miss Horatia Bluett, and I understood that there
was an understanding between these two perfectly Anglo-Saxon natures.

In fact, one was a traveler in teeth and the other was a traveler in
hair. Miss Horatia Bluett represented an important firm in London,
Messrs. Holmes-Holme, to whom the Celestial Empire annually exports two
millions of female heads of hair. She was going to Pekin on account of
the said firm, to open an office as a center for the collection of the
Chinese hair crop. It seemed a promising enterprise, as the secret
society of the Blue Lotus was agitating for the abolition of the
pigtail, which is the emblem of the servitude of the Chinese to the
Manchu Tartars. "Come," thought I, "if China sends her hair to England,
America sends her teeth: that is a capital exchange, and everything is
for the best."

We had been at the table for a quarter of an hour, and nothing had
happened. The traveler with the smooth complexion and his blonde
companion seemed to listen to us when we spoke in French. It evidently
pleased them, and they were already showing an inclination to join in
our talk. I was not mistaken, then; they are compatriots, but of what
class?

At this moment the _Astara_ gave a lurch. The plates rattled on the
table; the covers slipped; the glasses upset some of their contents;
the hanging lamps swung out of the vertical--or rather our seats and
the table moved in accordance with the roll of the ship. It is a
curious effect, when one is sailor enough to bear it without alarm.

"Eh!" said the American; "here is the good old Caspian shaking her
skin."

"Are you subject to seasickness?" I asked.

"No more than a porpoise," said he. "Are you ever seasick?" he
continued to his neighbor.

"Never," said Miss Horatia Bluett.

On the other side of the table there was an interchange of a few words
in French.

"You are not unwell, Madame Caterna?"

"No, Adolphe, not yet; but if this continues, I am afraid--"

"Well, Caroline, we had better go on deck. The wind has hauled a point
to the eastward, and the _Astara_ will soon be sticking her nose in the
feathers."

His way of expressing himself shows that "Monsieur Caterna"--if that
was his name--was a sailor, or ought to have been one. That explains
the way he rolls his hips as he walks.

The pitching now becomes very violent. The majority of