at class of people which the world calls
adventurers, whether the same be railroad speculators, fortune-hunters,
discoverers of inexhaustible mines, or Garibaldians. Your respectable
man, with a pocket-book well stored with his circular notes, and his
passport in order, is as uninteresting as a "Treckshuyt" on a Dutch
canal; but your "martyr to circumstance" is like a smart felucca in a
strong Levanter; and you can watch his course--how he shakes out his
reefs or shortens sail--how he flaunts out his bunting, or hides his
colours--with an unflagging interest I have often thought what a deal of
cleverness--what stores of practical ability--were lost to the world
in these out-at-elbow fellows, who speak every language fluently,
play every game well, sing pleasingly, dance, ride, row, and shoot,
especially with the pistol, to perfection. There they are, with a mass
of qualities that win success! and, what often is harder, win goodwill
in life! There they are, by some unhappy twist in their natures,
preferring the precarious existence of the race-course or the
billiard-table; while others, with about a tithe of their talents, are
high in place and power. I met one of these men to-day, and a strong
specimen of the class, well dressed, well whiskered, very quiet in
manner, almost subdued in tone, but with a slight restlessness in his
eye that was very significant. We found ourselves at table, over
our coffee, when the others had left, and fell into conversation. He
declined my offered cigar with much courtesy, preferring to smoke
little cigarettes of his own making; and really the manufacture was very
adroit, and, in its way, a study of the maker's habits. We talked over
the usual topics--the bad dinner we had just eaten, the strange-looking
company, the discomfort of the hotel generally, and suchlike.

"Have we not met before?" asked he, after a pause. "If I don't mistake,
we dined together aboard of Leslie's yacht, the Fawn."

I shook my head. "Only knew Sir Francis Leslie by name; never saw the
Fawn."

The shot failed, but there was no recoil in his gun, and he merely bowed
a half apology.

"A yacht is a mistake," added he, after another interval. "One is
obliged to take, not the men one wants, but the fellows who can bear the
sea. Leslie, for instance, had such a set that I left him at Messina.
Strange enough, they took us for pirates there."

"For pirates!"

"Yes. There were three fishing-boats--what they call _Bi