long it is since the poor President went down. He is standing
close to the lazy gentleman, and says with a faint smile that he
believes She is a very strong Ship; to which the lazy gentleman,
looking first in his questioner's eye and then very hard in the
wind's, answers unexpectedly and ominously, that She need be. Upon
this the lazy gentleman instantly falls very low in the popular
estimation, and the passengers, with looks of defiance, whisper to
each other that he is an ass, and an impostor, and clearly don't
know anything at all about it.

But we are made fast alongside the packet, whose huge red funnel is
smoking bravely, giving rich promise of serious intentions.
Packing-cases, portmanteaus, carpet-bags, and boxes, are already
passed from hand to hand, and hauled on board with breathless
rapidity. The officers, smartly dressed, are at the gangway
handing the passengers up the side, and hurrying the men. In five
minutes' time, the little steamer is utterly deserted, and the
packet is beset and over-run by its late freight, who instantly
pervade the whole ship, and are to be met with by the dozen in
every nook and corner: swarming down below with their own baggage,
and stumbling over other people's; disposing themselves comfortably
in wrong cabins, and creating a most horrible confusion by having
to turn out again; madly bent upon opening locked doors, and on
forcing a passage into all kinds of out-of-the-way places where
there is no thoroughfare; sending wild stewards, with elfin hair,
to and fro upon the breezy decks on unintelligible errands,
impossible of execution: and in short, creating the most
extraordinary and bewildering tumult. In the midst of all this,
the lazy gentleman, who seems to have no luggage of any kind - not
so much as a friend, even - lounges up and down the hurricane deck,