to this
effect. 'When will this be over?'

'Another week, they say, sir,' returned Mark, 'will most likely bring
us into port. The ship's a-going along at present, as sensible as a ship
can, sir; though I don't mean to say as that's any very high praise.'

'I don't think it is, indeed,' groaned Martin.

'You'd feel all the better for it, sir, if you was to turn out,'
observed Mark.

'And be seen by the ladies and gentlemen on the after-deck,' returned
Martin, with a scronful emphasis upon the words, 'mingling with the
beggarly crowd that are stowed away in this vile hole. I should be
greatly the better for that, no doubt.'

'I'm thankful that I can't say from my own experience what the feelings
of a gentleman may be,' said Mark, 'but I should have thought, sir, as a
gentleman would feel a deal more uncomfortable down here than up in the
fresh air, especially when the ladies and gentlemen in the after-cabin
know just as much about him as he does about them, and are likely to
trouble their heads about him in the same proportion. I should have
thought that, certainly.'

'I tell you, then,' rejoined Martin, 'you would have thought wrong, and
do think wrong.'

'Very likely, sir,' said Mark, with imperturbable good temper. 'I often
do.'

'As to lying here,' cried Martin, raising himself on his elbow, and
looking angrily at his follower. 'Do you suppose it's a pleasure to lie
here?'

'All the madhouses in the world,' said Mr Tapley, 'couldn't produce such
a maniac as the man must be who could think that.'

'Then why are you forever goading and urging me to get up?' asked
Martin, 'I lie here because I don't wish to be recognized, in the better
days to which I aspire, by any purse-proud citizen, as the man who came
over with him among the steerage passengers. I lie here because I wish
to conceal my circumstances and myself, and not to arrive in a new world
badged and ticketed as an utterly poverty-stricken man. If I could have
afforded a passage in the after-cabin I should have held up my head with
the rest. As I couldn't I hide it. Do you understand that?'

'I am very sorry, sir,' said Mark. 'I didn't know you took it so much to
heart as this comes to.'

'Of course you didn't know,' returned his master. 'How should you
know, unless I told you? It's no trial to you, Mark, to make yourself
comfortable and to bustle about. It's as natural for you to do so under
the circumstances as it is for me not to do so. Why,