"What's the number, sir?" said the steward, as I staggered down the
companion.

"I have got no berth," said I mournfully.

"A dark horse, not placed," said the Honourable Jack, smiling pleasantly
as he looked after me, while I threw myself on a sofa, and cursed the
sea.

CHAPTER II. THE BOAR'S HEAD AT ROTTERDAM.

If the noise and hustle which attend a wedding, like trumpets in a
battle, are intended as provisions against refection, so firmly do I
feel, the tortures of sea-sickness, are meant as antagonists to all the
terrors of drowning, and all the horrors of shipwreck.

Let him who has felt the agonies of that internal earthquake which the
"pitch and toss" motion of a ship communicates--who knows what it is,
to have his diaphragm vibrating between his ribs and the back of his
throat, confess, how little to him was all the confusion which he
listened to, over head! how poor the interest he took in the welfare of
the craft wherein he was "only a lodger," and how narrowed were all his
sympathies within the small circle of bottled porter, and brandy and
water, the steward's infallibles in suffering.

I lay in my narrow crib, moody pondering over these things, now
wondering within myself, what charms of travel could recompense such
agonies as these; now muttering a curse, "not loud, but deep," on the
heavy gentleman, whose ponderous tread on the quarter-deck seemed to
promenade up and down the surface of my own pericranium: the greasy
steward, the jolly captain, the brown-faced, black-whiskered king's
messenger, who snored away on the sofa, all came in for a share of my
maledictions, and took out my cares, in curses upon the whole party.
Meanwhile could distinguish, amid the other sounds, the elastic tread of
certain light feet that pattered upon the quarter-deck; and I could not
mistake the assured footstep which accompanied them, nor did I need the
happy roar of laughter that mixed with the noise, to satisfy myself that
the "Honourable Jack" was then cultivating the Alderman's daughters,
discoursing most eloquently upon the fascinations of those exclusive
circles wherein he was wont to move, and explaining, on the clearest
principles, what a frightful chasm his absence must create in the London
world--how deplorably flat would the season go off, where he was no
actor---and wondering, who, among the aspirants of high ambition, would
venture to assume his line of character, and supply his place, either on
t