surgeon, and, besides, I had not vegetated, but had been interested in
everything that had occurred, humdrum as it was. With these thoughts,
I looked out of the port-hole, to see the shores of Colombo, Galle Face,
and Mount Lavinia fading in the distance, and heard seven bells--the time
for dinner. When I took my seat at the table of which I was the head, my
steward handed to me a slip of paper, saying that the chief steward had
given a new passenger, a lady, the seat at my right hand, which had been
vacated at Colombo. The name on the paper was "Mrs. Falchion." The seat
was still empty, and I wondered if this was the beautiful passenger who
had attracted me and interested the Intermediate Passenger. I was
selfish enough to wish so: and it was so.

We had finished the soup before she entered. The chief steward, with
that anxious civility which beauty can inspire in even so great a
personage, conducted her to her seat beside me. I confess that though I
was at once absorbed in this occurrence, I noticed also that some of the
ladies present smiled significantly when they saw at whose table Mrs.
Falchion was placed, and looked not a little ironically at the purser,
who, as it was known, always tried to get for his table the newest
addition to the passenger list--when it was a pretty woman. I believe
that one or two rude people chaffed the chief steward about "favouring
the doctor"; but he had a habit of saying uncomfortable things in a
deferential way, and they did not pursue the subject. Then they
commiserated the purser, who was an unpleasant little Jew of an envious
turn of mind; and he, as I was told, likened me to Sir John Falstaff. I
was sensitive in those days, and this annoyed me, particularly that I had
had nothing to do with placing Mrs. Falchion at my table. We are always
most sensitive when guilty concerning the spirit and not the letter.

One who has lived the cosmopolitan life of London should be quick at