assistance, I cannot imagine. I was afraid to ask any questions of
the passers-by, for I did not really know what to ask them, or how to
explain my situation; and, seeing that everybody was gaping at me with
wonder and curiosity (and many of them were clearly laughing at my
absurd appearance), I hurried on, not having the least idea of where I
should go or what I should do.

"At length I saw a man with a very red face approaching on the opposite
side of the street, and from his general appearance I guessed him to be
a sailor; so, driven almost to desperation, I crossed over to him,
looking, I am sure, the very picture of despair, and I thus accosted
him: 'If you please, sir, can you tell me where I can go and ship for a
voyage?'

"'A voyage!' shouted he, in reply, 'a voyage! A pretty looking fellow
you for a voyage!'--which observation very much confused me. Then he
asked me a great many questions, using a great many hard names, the
meaning of which I did not at all understand, and the necessity for
which I could not exactly see. I noticed that he called me 'landlubber'
very frequently, but I had no idea whether he meant to compliment or
abuse me, though it seemed more likely to me that it was the latter.
After a while, however, he seemed to have grown tired of talking, or had
exhausted all his strange words, for he turned short round and bade me
follow him, which I did, with very much the feelings a culprit must have
when he is going to prison.

"We went down a steep hill, and arrived presently at a low, dingy place,
the only peculiar feature of which was that it smelled of tar and had a
great many people lounging about in it. It was, as I soon found out, a
'shipping office,'--that is, a place where sailors engage themselves for
a voyage. No sooner had we entered than my conductor led me up to a tall
desk, and then, addressing himself to a sharp-faced man on the other
side of it, he said something which I did not clearly comprehend. Then I
was told to sign a paper, which I did without even reading a word of it,
and then the red-faced man cried out in a very loud and startling tone
of voice, 'Bill!' when somebody at once rolled off a bench, and
scrambled to his feet. This was evidently the 'Bill' alluded to.

"When Bill had got upon his feet, he surveyed me for an instant, as I
thought, with a very needlessly firm expression of countenance, and then
started towards the door, saying to me as he set off, 'This way, you