peak
of the privacy I observed by not mixing with the passengers in the
mail packet, by keeping myself estranged from all observation in the
captain's cabin? Here, too, was the secret of the skipper's politeness
to me: he saw the bag, and believed me to be a Foreign Office messenger,
and this was his meaning, as he said, "I can answer for him, he can't
delay much here." Yes; this was the entire mystification by which I
obtained his favor, his politeness, and his protection. What was to be
done in this exigency? Had the waiter not seen the bag, and with the
instincts of his craft calmly perused the address on it, I believe--nay,
I am quite convinced--I should have burned it and its contents on
the spot. The thought of his evidence against me in the event of a
discovery, however, entirely routed this notion, and, after a brief
consideration I resolved to convey the bag to its destination, and trump
up the most plausible explanation I could of the way it came into my
possession. His Excellency, I reasoned, will doubtless be too delighted
to receive his despatches to inquire very minutely as to the means by
which they were recovered, nor is it quite impossible that he may
feel bound to mark my zeal for the public service by some token of
recognition. This was a pleasant turn to give to my thoughts, and I took
it with all the avidity of my peculiar temperament. "Yes," thought I,
"it is just out of trivial incidents like this a man's fortune is made
in life. For one man who mounts to greatness by the great entrance and
the state staircase, ten thousand slip in by _la petite Porte_. It
is, in fact, only by these chances that obscure genius obtains
acknowledgment How, for example, should this great diplomatist know
Potts if some accident should not throw them together? Raleigh flung
his laced jacket in a puddle, and for his reward he got a proud Queen's
favor. A village apothecary had the good fortune to be visiting the
state apartments at the Pavilion when George the Fourth was seized with
a fit; he bled him, brought him back to consciousness, and made him
laugh by his genial and quaint humor. The king took a fancy to him,
named him his physician, and made his fortune. I have often heard it
remarked by men who have seen much of life, that nobody, not one, goes
through the world without two or three such opportunities presenting
themselves. The careless, the indolent, the unobservant, and the idle,
either fail to remark, or are