a small boat to one of the many queer looking,
high-pooped crafts in the harbor, and very soon found ourselves in a tiny
cabin, panelled with maple, in which the captain and some of the men were
busy over a pan of savory _lobscouse_, a salt-sea dish of great
reputation and flavor. Picton soon made his agreement with the captain for
a four days' sail (or more) across to the neighboring province, and his
luggage was to be on board the next morning. Once more we sailed over the
bay of Sydney, and regained the pleasant shelter of our inn.

"Picton," said I, after a comfortable supper and a pensive segar, "we
shall soon separate for our respective homes; but before we part, I wish
to say to you how much I have enjoyed this brief acquaintance; perhaps we
may never meet again, but I trust our short voyage together, will now and
then be recalled by you, in whatever part of the world you may chance to
be, as it certainly will by me."

The traveller replied by a hearty, earnest grasp of the hand; and then,
after this formal leave-taking, we became suddenly estranged, as it were,
sad, and silent, and shy; the familiar tone of conversation lost its
key-note; Picton looked out of the inn window at the luminous moon-fog on
the bay, and I buried my reflections in an antiquated pamphlet of
"Household Words." We were soon interrupted by a stranger coming into the
parlor, a chance visitor, another dry, preceese specimen of the land of
oat-cakes.

After the usual salutations, the conversation floated easily on, upon
indifferent topics, until Picton happened to allude, casually, to the
general banking system of England. This was enough for a text. Our visitor
immediately launched forth upon the subject, and gaed us a twa-hours
discourse on the system of banking in Scotland; wherein the superiority of
the method adopted by his countrymen, to wring the last drop of interest
out a shilling, was pertinaciously and dogmatically argued, upon the great
groundwork of "the general and aibstract preencepels of feenance!"

It was in vain that the traveller endeavored to silence him by a few
flashes of sarcasm. He might as well have tried to silence a park of
artillery with a handful of torpedoes! On and on, with the doggedness of a
slow-hound, the Scot pursued the theme, until all other considerations
were lost in the one sole idea.

But thus it is always, when you come in contact with people of "aibstract
preencepels." All sweet and tender impul