s in
Glasgow one of these institutions, which are by far the happiest and the
wisest effort of contemporaneous charity; but I must stand to my author,
as they say in old books, and relate the story as I heard it. In the
meantime, he had tried four times to stow away in different vessels, and
four times had been discovered and handed back to starvation. The fifth
time was lucky; and you may judge if he were pleased to be aboard ship
again, at his old work, and with duff twice a week. He was, said Alick,
"a devil for the duff." Or if devil was not the word, it was one if
anything stronger.

The difference in the conduct of the two was remarkable. The Devonian
was as willing as any paid hand, swarmed aloft among the first, pulled
his natural weight and firmly upon a rope, and found work for himself
when there was none to show him. Alick, on the other hand, was not only
a skulker in the grain, but took a humorous and fine gentlemanly view of
the transaction. He would speak to me by the hour in ostentatious
idleness; and only if the bo's'un or a mate came by, fell-to languidly
for just the necessary time till they were out of sight. "I'm not
breaking my heart with it," he remarked.

Once there was a hatch to be opened near where he was stationed; he
watched the preparations for a second or so suspiciously, and then,
"Hullo," said he, "here's some real work coming--I'm off," and he was
gone that moment. Again, calculating the six guinea passage-money, and
the probable duration of the passage, he remarked pleasantly that he was
getting six shillings a day for this job, "and it's pretty dear to the
company at that." "They are making nothing by me," was another of his
observations; "they're making something by that fellow." And he pointed
to the Devonian, who was just then busy to the eyes.

The more you saw of Alick, the more, it must be owned, you learned to
despise him. His natural talents were of no use either to himself or
others; for his character had degenerated like his face, and become
pulpy and pretentious. Even his power of persuasion, which was certainly
very surprising, stood in some danger of being lost or neutralised by
over-confidence. He lied in an aggressive, brazen manner, like a pert
criminal in the dock; and he was so vain of his own cleverness that he
could not refrain from boasting, ten minutes after, of the very trick by
which he had deceived you. "Why, now I have more money than when I came
on board,"