-each man and woman was more or less correctly gauged according to
worth. The courageous and the timid, the sensible and the vain, the
weak and the strong, the self-sacrificing and the selfish, all fell
naturally into their appropriate positions, subject to the moderate
confusion resulting from favouritism, abused power, and other forms of
sin. It was observable also that here, as elsewhere, all the coteries
commented with considerable freedom on each other, and that each coterie
esteemed itself unquestionably the best of the lot, although it might
not absolutely say so in words. There was one exception, namely in the
case of the worst or lowest coterie, which, so far from claiming to be
the best, openly proclaimed itself the worst, gloried in its shame, and
said that, "it didn't care a button," or words, even more expressive, to
the same effect.

Ned Jarring belonged to this last class. He was probably the worst
member of it.

One night an incident occurred which tested severely some of the
qualities of every one on board. It was sometime after midnight when
the dead silence of the slumbering ship was broken by perhaps the most
appalling of all sounds at sea--the cry of "Fire!"

Smoke had been discovered somewhere near the fore-cabin. Fortunately
the captain had just come up at the time to speak with the officer of
the watch on deck. At the first cry he ran to the spot pointed out,
telling the officer to call all hands and rig the pumps, and especially
to keep order among the passengers.

The first man who leaped from profound slumber into wide-awake activity
was Dr Hayward. Having just lain down to sleep on a locker, as he
expected to be called in the night to watch beside a friend who was ill,
he was already dressed, and would have been among the first at the scene
of the fire, but for an interruption. At the moment he was bounding up
the companion-ladder, a young man of feeble character--who would have
been repudiated by the sex, had he been born a woman--sprang down the
same ladder in abject terror. He went straight into the bosom of the
ascending doctor, and they both went with a crash to the bottom.

Although somewhat stunned, Hayward was able to jump up and again make
for the region of the fire, where he found most of the men and male
passengers working with hose and buckets in the midst of dire confusion.
Fortunately the seat of the conflagration was soon discovered; and,
owing much to the cool e