, "I have a couple of those little
things at home;" and he stops and heaves a great big sigh and swallows
down a half-tumbler of cold something and water. We know what the honest
fellow means well enough. He is saying to himself, "God bless my girls
and their mother!" but, being a Briton, is too manly to speak out in a
more intelligible way. Perhaps it is as well for him to be quiet, and
not chatter and gesticulate like those Frenchmen a few yards from him,
who are chirping over a bottle of champagne.

There is, as you may fancy, a number of such groups on the deck, and
a pleasant occupation it is for a lonely man to watch them and build
theories upon them, and examine those two personages seated cheek by
jowl. One is an English youth, travelling for the first time, who has
been hard at his Guidebook during the whole journey. He has a "Manuel du
Voyageur" in his pocket: a very pretty, amusing little oblong work it is
too, and might be very useful, if the foreign people in three languages,
among whom you travel, would but give the answers set down in the book,
or understand the questions you put to them out of it. The other honest
gentleman in the fur cap, what can his occupation be? We know him at
once for what he is. "Sir," says he, in a fine German accent, "I am a
brofessor of languages, and will gif you lessons in Danish, Swedish,
English, Bortuguese, Spanish and Bersian." Thus occupied in meditations,
the rapid hours and the rapid steamer pass quickly on. The sun is
sinking, and, as he drops, the ingenious luminary sets the Thames on
fire: several worthy gentlemen, watch in hand, are eagerly examining the
phenomena attending his disappearance,--rich clouds of purple and gold,
that form the curtains of his bed,--little barks that pass black across
his disc, his disc every instant dropping nearer and nearer into the
water. "There he goes!" says one sagacious observer. "No, he doesn't,"
cries another. Now he is gone, and the steward is already threading the
deck, asking the passengers, right and left, if they will take a
little supper. What a grand object is a sunset, and what a wonder is an
appetite at sea! Lo! the horned moon shines pale over Margate, and the
red beacon is gleaming from distant Ramsgate pier.

*****

A great rush is speedily made for the mattresses that lie in the boat at
the ship's side; and as the night is delightfully calm, many fair ladies
and worthy men determine to couch on deck for the night