he 'ear his born name given him, than he turns as white as the Day of
Judgment, stares at Mr. Sebright like he was looking at a ghost, and
then (I give you my word of honour) turned to, and doubled up in a dead
faint. 'Take him down to my berth,' says Mr. Sebright. ''Tis poor old
Norrie Carthew,' he says."

"And what--what sort of a gentleman was this Mr. Carthew?" I gasped.

"The ward-room steward told me he was come of the best blood in
England," was my friend's reply: "Eton and 'Arrow bred;--and might have
been a bar'net!"

"No, but to look at?" I corrected him.


"The same as you or me," was the uncompromising answer: "not much to
look at. I didn't know he was a gen'lem'n; but then, I never see him
cleaned up."

"How was that?" I cried. "O yes, I remember: he was sick all the way to
'Frisco, was he not?"

"Sick, or sorry, or something," returned my informant. "My belief, he
didn't hanker after showing up. He kep' close; the ward-room steward,
what took his meals in, told me he ate nex' to nothing; and he was
fetched ashore at 'Frisco on the quiet. Here was how it was. It seems
his brother had took and died, him as had the estate. This one had gone
in for his beer, by what I could make out; the old folks at 'ome had
turned rusty; no one knew where he had gone to. Here he was, slaving in
a merchant brig, shipwrecked on Midway, and packing up his duds for a