were
asking one another for the particulars of this rupture, which neither
of us had heard, when the Kentuckian made his reappearance in the
cabin. He had changed his dress, and, taking him altogether, was by no
means an ill-looking fellow. His light blue gingham frock and
snow-white trousers fitted him well; an elegant straw hat, very fine
linen, and a diamond shirt-pin that must have cost the best part of a
thousand dollars, contributed to give a sort of genteel planter-like
air. His first care upon emerging from his state-room was to empty a
glass of toddy. He then approached Richards and myself.

"And Miss Lambton?" said Richards enquiringly.

"Haven't you heard?" said Doughby; "you must have heard! It's all
up--she won't hear speak of me--persists in her resolution--won't see
me; or give me a chance of making my peace. I'm the most unlucky
fellow on the face of the earth," continued he, changing his tone on a
sudden to a melancholy sort of whine--"I wish I lay three hundred feet
deep in the bed of the Mississippi. I tell you, boys, it's clean up
with me, I feel that. I'm a lost man, done for entirely--shall never
recover it!"

We burst out into a violent fit of laughter, as who would not have
done at the sight of a young giant of seven-and-twenty, with cheeks as
red as poppies, shoulders that seemed made like those of Atlas to
support a world; pair of dark blue-grey eyes with a laughing devil
dancing in them, and a little moist just now from the effects of the
toddy, and the man dying of love! He measured five feet thirteen
inches in his stockings, with legs that might have belonged to an
elephant, and fists calculated to frighten a buffalo.

"Be d----d to your laughing!" cried Doughby--"Steward, another
glass--d'ye hear, you cursed neger, where are you hidden? Don't you
hear when a gentleman speaks to you? D'ye want me to tattoo your black
brainpan? You laugh," he continued to Richards and myself, relapsing
into his whimpering tones; "but if you only knew--none of the women
will have me--this is the seventh who has packed me off."

"The seventh!" cried I laughing, "what, only the seventh, Doughby?
Pshaw! that's nothing; during my bachelor's life I had at least two
dozen refusals, and I am only a year older than yourself."

"You be hanged with your two dozen! Steward, the toddy is only fit for
old women--too much water in it; you don't know how to make toddy.
Tell your captain to come here. I'll have you sen