in the full-rigged
clipper ship _Ariadne_, of London, with one hundred and forty-seven
other emigrants and eighteen first-class passengers. It was, I
suppose, a part of my father's enthusiastically desperate state of
mind at this time that we were booked as steerage passengers. We were
to lay aside finally all the effete uses of sophisticated life. We
were emigrants, bent upon carving a home for ourselves out of the
virgin wilderness. Naturally, we were to travel in the steerage. And,
indeed, I have good reason to suppose that my father's supply of money
must have been pretty low at the time. But we occupied a first-class
railway carriage on the journey down to Gravesend; and I know our
porter received a bright half-crown for his services to us, for my
father's hands were occupied, and the coin was passed to me for
bestowal.

Long before the tug left us, we sat down to our first meal on board;
perhaps a hundred of us together. A weary poor woman with two babies
was on my left, and a partly intoxicated man of the coal-heaving sort
(very likely a Cabinet Minister in Australia to-day) on my father's
right. This simple soul made the mistake of endeavouring to establish
an affectionate friendship with my father, who was sufficiently
resentful of the man's mere proximity, and received his would-be
genial advances with the most freezing politeness. But the event which
precipitated a crisis was the coal-heaver's removal of his knife from
his mouth--the dexterity with which his kind can manipulate these
lethal weapons, even when partly intoxicated, is little less than
miraculous--after the safe discharge there of some succulent morsel
from his plate, to plunge it direct into the contents of the
butter-dish before my father.

Black wrath descended upon my father's face as he rose from the table,
and drew me up beside him. 'Insufferable!' he muttered, as we left
that curious place for the first and last time. I see it now with its
long, narrow, uncovered tables, stretching between clammy iron
stanchions, and supported by iron legs fitting into sockets in the
deck. It was lighted by hanging lanterns which threw queer, moving
shadows in all directions, and stank consumedly.

'Are we hogs that we should be given our swill in such a sty?' asked
my father, explosively, of some subordinate member of the crew whom we
met as we reached the open deck.

'I dunno, matey,' replied this innocent. 'Feelin' sickish, are ye?
You've started