These steamers must be nice things for women and children, for it cannot seem at all as if they were at sea when the weather is pleasant, and they are so used to spending their time in reading and working that it does not much matter where they are, if they keep on with these occupations.  I suppose these ladies would have been miserable on such an old schooner as ours,—­and some of the men, too, who looked almost as effeminate.  I think Clarendon himself would very much prefer one of these nice little state-rooms, where he could make his toilet so comfortably, to his straw-bed in the old Go-Ahead.  I am sure a dinner on board the steamer would be much more to his taste than biscuit and water, even with such nice fish as we caught this morning for a relish.  He pulled up a whole barrel full of them himself, and that gave him a most excellent appetite.

At first, Clarendon declared that he could not go on board the steamer in his sailor rigging; but he had no other with him, and at length the desire to see what he called “civilized people” once more carried him over.  You should have seen some pretty ladies, who were sitting in the dining-room, stare at him.

“That is a remarkably genteel-looking man for one in his condition,” remarked the oldest of the group.  “What kind of a vessel did he come from?”

“I heard one of the gentlemen say, as it approached us, that it was a Yankee fishing-smack,” observed her daughter.

“He walks about as if he had been quite used to elegance,” observed a third, “and does not stare around like that plump little fellow beside him, who is too fair to have been long on the water.”

You may be sure that “the plump little fellow who stared about” was your cousin Pidgie, for David never looks astonished at any thing, and has so often visited all kinds of vessels that he is quite at home in any of them.  He was able to explain all the machinery to brother and myself, pointing out the improvements which have been recently made in steam navigation with a clearness that I never could equal.  I don’t believe, though, that Clarendon heard a word of this explanation; for the remarks of the ladies in the dining-room had reached his ear, and he was terribly discomfited at being taken for a Down East fisherman.

David really seems to have more independence than my proud brother, for he don’t care what people take him for, so there is nothing disgraceful about it, and verily believes that there is not a situation in the world which he could not do honor to, or make honorable.

Captain Cobb did not go on board himself, but deputed David to deliver a message to the captain about some fish, and no man could have discharged his commission with more quiet indifference.  You could see at a glance that the son of the owner of the fishing-smack Go-Ahead considered himself quite equal to the captain of the royal steamer.

“Have you had good luck in fishing this season, my fine fellow?” said an English gentleman to Clarendon, who was standing with his back towards him.