ntleman, in a shaky steamboat, on a dangerous river, in a
far-off country, which caught fire three times during the voyage--(of
course I mean the steamboat, not the country,)--seeing a giant, a
voracious supercargo, a bearded lady, and a little boy, not three years
of age, with a chin already quite black and curly, all plying their
victuals down their throats with their knives--allow, madam, that in
such a company a man had a right to feel a little nervous. I don't know
whether you have ever remarked the Indian jugglers swallowing their
knives, or seen, as I have, a whole table of people performing the same
trick, but if you look at their eyes when they do it, I assure you there
is a roll in them which is dreadful.

Apart from this usage, which they practise in common with many thousand
most estimable citizens, the Vermont gentleman, and the Kentucky
whiskered lady--or did I say the reverse?--whichever you like my dear
sir--were quite quiet, modest, unassuming people. She sat working with
her needle, if I remember right. He, I suppose, slept in the great
cabin, which was seventy feet long at the least, nor, I am bound to say,
did I hear in the night any snores or roars, such as you would fancy
ought to accompany the sleep of ogres. Nay, this giant had quite a small
appetite, (unless, to be sure, he went forward and ate a sheep or two in
private with his horrid knife--oh, the dreadful thought!--but IN PUBLIC,
I say, he had quite a delicate appetite,) and was also a tea-totaler.
I don't remember to have heard the lady's voice, though I might, not
unnaturally, have been curious to hear it. Was her voice a deep, rich,
magnificent bass; or was it soft, fluty, and mild? I shall never know
now. Even if she comes to this country, I shall never go and see her. I
HAVE seen her, and for nothing.

You would have fancied that, as after all we were only some half-dozen
on board, she might have dispensed with her red handkerchief, and
talked, and eaten her dinner in comfort: but in covering her chin there
was a kind of modesty. That beard was her profession: that beard brought
the public to see her: out of her business she wished to put that beard
aside as it were: as a barrister would wish to put off his wig. I know
some who carry theirs into private life, and who mistake you and me
for jury-boxes when they address us: but these are not your modest
barristers, not your true gentlemen.

Well, I own I respected the lady for the modes