st their blue coats and
brass buttons, have disappeared from deck and gangway as completely as
though they had been consigned to that locker which tradition
unanimously ascribes to Davy Jones. But, at the moment of starting,
they are there, clean-shaved, blue-coated, and ravenous for fees. I
hastened on board. The _Kamtschatka_ was one of my favourite ships. I
say was, because she emphatically no longer is. I cannot conceive of any
inducement which could entice me to make another voyage in her. Yes, I
know what you are going to say. She is uncommonly clean in the run aft,
she has enough bluffing off in the bows to keep her dry, and the lower
berths are most of them double. She has a lot of advantages, but I won't
cross in her again. Excuse the digression. I got on board. I hailed a
steward, whose red nose and redder whiskers were equally familiar to me.

"One hundred and five, lower berth," said I, in the businesslike tone
peculiar to men who think no more of crossing the Atlantic than taking a
whisky cocktail at downtown Delmonico's.

The steward took my portmanteau, great coat, and rug. I shall never
forget the expression of his face. Not that he turned pale. It is
maintained by the most eminent divines that even miracles cannot change
the course of nature. I have no hesitation in saying that he did not
turn pale; but, from his expression, I judged that he was either about
to shed tears, to sneeze, or to drop my portmanteau. As the latter
contained two bottles of particularly fine old sherry presented to me
for my voyage by my old friend Snigginson van Pickyns, I felt extremely
nervous. But the steward did none of these things.

"Well, I'm d----d!" said he in a low voice, and led the way.

I supposed my Hermes, as he led me to the lower regions, had had a
little grog, but I said nothing, and followed him. One hundred and five
was on the port side, well aft. There was nothing remarkable about the
state-room. The lower berth, like most of those upon the _Kamtschatka_,
was double. There was plenty of room; there was the usual washing
apparatus, calculated to convey an idea of luxury to the mind of a
North-American Indian; there were the usual inefficient racks of brown
wood, in which it is more easy to hang a large-sized umbrella than the
common tooth-brush of commerce. Upon the uninviting mattresses were
carefully folded together those blankets which a great modern humorist
has aptly compared to cold buckwheat cakes.