“I think a little tay would settle my stomach, if I only could get it; but what’s the use of talking in this horrid place?  They never mind me no more than if I was a pig.  Steward, steward—­oh, then, it’s wishing you well I am for a steward.  Steward, I say;” and this she really did say, with an energy of voice and manner that startled more than one sleeper.  “Oh, you’re coming at last, steward.”

“Ma’am,” said a little dapper and dirty personage, in a blue jacket, with a greasy napkin negligently thrown over one arm “ex officio,” “Ma’am, did you call?”

“Call, is it call?  No; but I’m roaring for you this half hour.  Come here.  Have you any of the cordial dhrops agin the sickness?—­you know what I mean.”

“Is it brandy, ma’am?”

“No, it isn’t brandy;”

“We have got gin, ma’am, and bottled porter—­cider, ma’am, if you like.”

“Agh, no! sure I want the dhrops agin the sickness.”

“Don’t know indeed, ma’am.”

“Ah, you stupid creature; maybe you’re not the real steward.  What’s your name?”

“Smith, ma’am.”

“Ah, I thought so; go away, man, go away.”

This injunction, given in a diminuendo cadence, was quickly obeyed, and all was silence for a moment or two.  Once more was I dropping asleep, when the same voice as before burst out with—­

“Am I to die here like a haythen, and nobody to come near me?  Steward, steward, steward Moore, I say,”

“Who calls me?” said a deep sonorous voice from the opposite side of the cabin, while at the same instant a tall green silk nightcap, surmounting a very aristocratic-looking forehead, appeared between the curtains of the opposite berth.

“Steward Moore,” said the lady again, with her eyes straining in the direction of the door by which she expected him to enter.

“This is most strange,” muttered the baronet, half aloud.  “Why, madam, you are calling me!”

“And if I am,” said Mrs. Mulrooney, “and if ye heerd me, have ye no manners to answer your name, eh?  Are ye steward Moore?”

“Upon my soul ma’am I thought so last night, when I came on board; but you really have contrived to make me doubt my own identity.”

“And is it there ye’re lying on the broad of yer back, and me as sick as a dog fornent ye?”

“I concede ma’am the fact; the position is a most irksome one on every account.”

“Then why don’t ye come over to me?” and this Mrs. Mulrooney said with a voice of something like tenderness—­wishing at all hazards to conciliate so important a functionary.

“Why, really you are the most incomprehensible person I ever met.”