brightness and keenness. A passing glance might give the idea that
he was languid and half asleep, but a closer one would reveal those
glittering, shifting lines of light, and warn the prudent man not to
trust too much to his first impressions.

'I could swim to Portsmouth,' he remarked, rummaging in the pockets of
his sodden jacket; 'I could swim well-nigh anywhere. I once swam from
Gran on the Danube to Buda, while a hundred thousand Janissaries danced
with rage on the nether bank. I did, by the keys of St. Peter!
Wessenburg's Pandours would tell you whether Decimus Saxon could swim.
Take my advice, young men, and always carry your tobacco in a
water-tight metal box.'

As he spoke he drew a flat box from his pocket, and several wooden
tubes, which he screwed together to form a long pipe. This he stuffed
with tobacco, and having lit it by means of a flint and steel with a
piece of touch-paper from the inside of his box, he curled his legs
under him in Eastern fashion, and settled down to enjoy a smoke.
There was something so peculiar about the whole incident, and so
preposterous about the man's appearance and actions, that we both broke
into a roar of laughter, which lasted until for very exhaustion we
were compelled to stop. He neither joined in our merriment nor
expressed offence at it, but continued to suck away at his long wooden
tube with a perfectly stolid and impassive face, save that the
half-covered eyes glinted rapidly backwards and forwards from one to the
other of us.

'You will excuse our laughter, sir,' I said at last; 'my friend and I
are unused to such adventures, and are merry at the happy ending of it.
May we ask whom it is that we have picked up?'