LITMIR.BIZ

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suit Bob.” Then, lifting his head, he addressed me: “I have a brother in command of one of the P. and O. steamers, – just the fellow for you. He has got ideas pretty much like your own about success in life, and won’t be persuaded that he isn’t the first seaman in the English navy; or that he hasn’t a plan to send Cherbourg and its breakwater sky-high, at twenty-four hours’ warning.”

      “An enthusiast, – a visionary, I have no doubt,” said I, contemptuously.

      “Well, I think you might be more merciful in your judgment of a man of your own stamp,” retorted he, laughing. “At all events, it would be as good as a play to see you together. If you should chance to be at Malta, or Marseilles, when the Clarence touches there, just ask for Captain Rogers; tell him you know me, that will be enough.”

      “Why not give me a line of introduction to him?” said I, with an easy indifference. “These things serve to clear away the awkwardness of a self-presentation.”

      “I don’t care if I do,” said he, taking a sheet of paper, and beginning 'Dear Bob,’ – after which he paused and deliberated, muttering the words ‘Dear Bob’ three or four times over below his breath.

      “‘Dear Bob,’” said I aloud, in the tone of one dictating to an amanuensis, – “‘This brief note will be handed to you by a very valued friend of mine, Algernon Sydney Potts, a man so completely after your own heart that I feel a downright satisfaction in bringing you together.’”

      “Well, that ain’t so bad,” said he, as he uttered the last words which fell from his pen – “‘in bringing you together.’”

      “Go on,” said I dictatorially, and continued: “‘Thrown by a mere accident myself into his society, I was so struck by his attainments, the originality of his views, and the wide extent of his knowledge of life – ’ Have you that down?”

      “No,” said he, in some confusion; “I am only at ‘entertainments.’”

      “I said ‘attainments,’ sir,” said I rebukingly, and then repeating the passage word for word, till he had written it – “‘that I conceived for him a regard and an esteem rarely accorded to others than our oldest friends.’ One word more: ‘Potts, from certain circumstances, which I cannot here enter upon, may appear to you in some temporary inconvenience as regards money – ‘”

      Here the captain stopped, and gave me a most significant look: it was at once an appreciation and an expression of drollery.

      “Go on,” said I dryly. “‘If so,’” resumed I, “‘be guardedly cautious neither to notice his embarrassment nor allude to it; above all, take especial care that you make no offer to remove the inconvenience, for he is one of those whose sensibilities are so fine, and whose sentiments sa fastidious, that he could never recover, in his own esteem, the dignity compromised by such an incident.’”

      “Very neatly turned,” said he, as he re-read the passage. “I think that’s quite enough.”

      “Ample. You have nothing more to do than sign your name to it.”

      He did this, with a verificatory flourish at foot, folded and sealed the letter, and handed it to me, saying —

      “If it weren’t for the handwriting, Bob would never believe all that fine stuff came from me; but you ‘ll tell him it was after three glasses of brandy-and-water that I dashed it off – that will explain everything.”

      I promised faithfully to make the required explanation, and then proceeded to make some inquiries about this brother Bob, whose nature was in such a close affinity with my own. I could learn, however, but little beyond the muttered acknowledgment that Bob was a “queer ‘un,” and that there was never his equal for “falling upon good-luck, and spending it after,” a description which, when applied to my own conscience, told an amount of truth that was actually painful.

      “There’s no saying,” said I, as I pocketed the letter, “if this epistle should ever reach your brother’s hand, my course in life is too wayward and uncertain for me to say in what corner of the earth fate may find me; but if we are to meet, you shall hear of it. Rogers” – I said, “this you extended to me, at a time that, to all seeming, I needed such attentions – at a time, I say, when none but myself could know how independently I stood as regarded means; and of one thing be assured, Rogers, he whose caprice it now is to call himself Potts, is your friend, your fast friend, for life.”

      He wrung my hand cordially – perhaps it was the easiest way for an honest sailor, as he was, to acknowledge the patronising tone of my speech – but I could plainly see that he was sorely puzzled by the situation, and possibly very well pleased that there was no third party to be a spectator of it.

      “Throw yourself there on that sofa,” said he, “and take a sleep.” And with that piece of counsel he left me, and went up on deck.

      CHAPTER IX. HIS INTEREST IN A LADY FELLOW-TRAVELLER

      Next mornings are terrible things, whether one awakes to the thought of some awful run of ill-luck at play, or with the racking headache of new port or a very “fruity” Burgundy. They are dreadful, too, when they bring memories – vague and indistinct, perhaps – of some serious altercations, passionate words exchanged, and expressions of defiance reciprocated; but, as a measure of self-reproach and humiliation, I know not any distress can compare with the sensation of awaking to the consciousness that our cups have so ministered to imagination that we have given a mythical narrative of ourself and our belongings, and have built up a card edifice of greatness that must tumble with the first touch of truth.

      It was a sincere satisfaction to me that I saw nothing of the skipper on that “next morning.” He was so occupied with all the details of getting into port, that I escaped his notice, and contrived to land unremarked. Little scraps of my last night’s biography would obtrude themselves upon me, mixed up strangely with incidents of that same skipper’s life, so that I was actually puzzled at moments to remember whether “he” was not the descendant of the famous rebel friend of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and I it was who was sold in the public square at Tunis.

      These dissolving views of an evening before are very difficult problems, – not to you, most valued reader, whose conscience is not burglariously assaulted by a riotous imagination, but to the poor weak Potts-like organizations, the men who never énjoy a real sensation, or taste a real pleasure, save on the hypothesis of a mock situation.

      I sat at my breakfast in the “Goat” meditating these things. The grand problem to resolve was this: Is it better to live a life of dull incidents and commonplace events in one’s own actual sphere, or, creating, by force of imagination, an ideal status, to soar into a region of higher conceptions and more pictorial situations? What could existence in the first case offer me? A wearisome beaten path, with nothing to interest, nothing to stimulate me. On the other side lay glorious regions of lovely scenery, peopled with figures the most graceful and attractive. I was at once the associate of the wise, the witty, and the agreeable, with wealth at my command, and great prizes within my reach. Illusions all! to be sure; but what are not illusions, – if by that word you take mere account of permanence? What is it in this world that we love to believe real is not illusionary, – the question of duration being the only difference? Is not beauty perishable? Is not wit soon exhausted? What becomes of the proudest physical strength after middle life is reached? What of eloquence when the voice fails or loses its facility of inflection?

      All these considerations, however convincing to myself, were not equally satisfactory as regarded others; and so I sat down to write a letter to Crofton, explaining the reasons of my sudden departure, and enclosing him Father Dyke’s epistle, which I had carried away with me. I began this letter with the most firm resolve to be truthful and accurate. I wrote down, not only the date, but the day. “‘Goat,’ Milford,” followed, and then, “My dear Crofton, – It would ill become one who has partaken of your generous hospitality, and who, from an unknown stranger, was admitted to the privilege of your intimacy, to quit the roof beneath which the happiest hours of his life were passed without expressing the deep shame and sorrow such a step has cost him,

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