without such
exceptional good fortune, as things stand in England and America, the
stowaway will often make a good profit out of his adventure. Four
engineers stowed away last summer on the same ship, the _Circassia_; and
before two days after their arrival each of the four had found a
comfortable berth. This was the most hopeful tale of emigration that I
heard from first to last; and as you see, the luck was for stowaways.

My curiosity was much inflamed by what I heard; and the next morning, as
I was making the round of the ship, I was delighted to find the ex-Royal
Engineer engaged in washing down the white paint of a deck house. There
was another fellow at work beside him, a lad not more than twenty, in
the most miraculous tatters, his handsome face sown with grains of
beauty and lighted up by expressive eyes. Four stowaways had been found
aboard our ship before she left the Clyde; but these two had alone
escaped the ignominy of being put ashore. Alick, my acquaintance of last
night, was Scots by birth, and by trade a practical engineer; the other
was from Devonshire, and had been to sea before the mast. Two people
more unlike by training, character, and habits it would be hard to
imagine; yet here they were together, scrubbing paint.

Alick had held all sorts of good situations, and wasted many
opportunities in life. I have heard him end a story with these words:
"That was in my golden days, when I used finger-glasses." Situation
after situation failed him; then followed the depression of trade, and
for months he had hung round with other idlers, playing marbles all day
in the West Park, and going home at night to tell his landlady how he
had been seeking for a job. I believe this kind of existence was not
unpleasant to Alick himself, and he might have long continued to enjoy
idleness and a life on tick; but he had a comrade, let us call him
Brown, who grew restive. This fellow was continually threatening to slip
his cable for the States, and at last, one Wednesday, Glasgow was left
widowed of her Brown. Some months afterwards, Alick met another old
chum in Sauchiehall Street.

"By the bye, Alick," said he, "I met a gentleman in New York who was
asking for you."

"Who was that?" asked Alick.

"The new second engineer on board the _So-and-So_," was the reply.

"Well, and who is he?"

"Brown, to be sure."

For Brown had been one of the fortunate quartette aboard the
_Circassia_. If that was the way of it i