le
in her side, or the side itself rusts through at last and lets the water
in, or the last straw in the shape of an extra ton of brine tumbles on
board, and the _John Smith (Newcastle)_, goes down with a swoosh before
the cook has time to leave off peeling his potatoes and take to prayer.

These cheerful--and, maybe, unjust--reflections are perhaps in
consequence of our having lost half a sovereign to start with. We
arrived at the booking-office with two minutes to spare, two sticks of
Juno tobacco, a spare wooden pipe--in case we lost the other--a letter
to a friend's friend down south, a pound note (Bank of New Zealand), and
two half-crowns, with which to try our fortunes in the South Island.
We also had a few things in a portmanteau and two blankets in a
three-bushel bag, but they didn't amount to much. The clerk put down the
ticket with the half-sovereign on top of it, and we wrapped the latter
in the former and ran for the wharf. On the way we snatched the ticket
out to see the name of the boat we were going by, in order to find it,
and it was then, we suppose, that the semi-quid got lost.

Did you ever lose a sovereign or a half-sovereign under similar
circumstances? You think of it casually and feel for it carelessly at
first, to be sure that it's there all right; then, after going through
your pockets three or four times with rapidly growing uneasiness, you
lose your head a little and dredge for that coin hurriedly and with
painful anxiety. Then you force yourself to be calm, and proceed to
search yourself systematically, in a methodical manner. At this stage,
if you have time, it's a good plan to sit down and think out when and
where you last had that half-sovereign, and where you have been since,
and which way you came from there, and what you took out of your pocket,
and where, and whether you might have given it in mistake for sixpence
at that pub where you rushed in to have a beer--and then you calculate
the chances against getting it back again. The last of these reflections
is apt to be painful, and the painfulness is complicated and increased
when there happen to have been several pubs and a like number of hurried
farewell beers in the recent past.

And for months after that you cannot get rid of the idea that that
half-sov. might be about your clothes somewhere. It haunts you. You
turn your pockets out, and feel the lining of your coat and vest inch by
inch, and examine your letter papers--everything