that I should be so; and there was nothing but the brass plate
between decks to remind me that I had once been a gentleman. In a former
book, describing a former journey, I expressed some wonder that I could
be readily and naturally taken for a pedlar, and explained the accident
by the difference of language and manners between England and France. I
must now take a humbler view; for here I was among my own countrymen,
somewhat roughly clad, to be sure, but with every advantage of speech
and manner; and I am bound to confess that I passed for nearly anything
you please except an educated gentleman. The sailors called me "mate,"
the officers addressed me as "my man," my comrades accepted me without
hesitation for a person of their own character and experience, but with
some curious information. One, a mason himself, believed I was a mason;
several, and among these at least one of the seamen, judged me to be a
petty officer in the American navy; and I was so often set down for a
practical engineer that at last I had not the heart to deny it. From all
these guesses I drew one conclusion, which told against the insight of
my companions. They might be close observers in their own way, and read
the manners in the face; but it was plain that they did not extend their
observation to the hands.

To the saloon passengers also I sustained my part without a hitch. It is
true I came little in their way; but when we did encounter, there was no
recognition in their eye, although I confess I sometimes courted it in
silence. All these, my inferiors and equals, took me, like the
transformed monarch in the story, for a mere common, human man. They
gave me a hard, dead look, with the flesh about the eye kept unrelaxed.

With the women this surprised me less, as I had already experimented on
the sex by going abroad through a suburban part of London simply attired
in a sleeve-waistcoat. The result was curious. I then learned for the
first time, and by the exhaustive process, how much attention ladies are
accustomed to bestow on all male creatures of their own station; for, in
my humble rig, each one who went by me caused me a certain shock of
surprise and a sense of something wanting. In my normal circumstances,
it appeared, every young lady must have paid me some passing tribute of
a glance; and though I had often been unconscious of it when given, I
was well aware of its absence when it was withheld. My height seemed to
decrease with every