"The _conchiglia_ savours of Rome, and the little chain annexed bespeaks
the Rialto; while the _moustaches_ are anything but _indigenes_, and the
_tout ensemble_ the world: the man is travelled, at least."

Eve's eyes sparkled with humour as she said this: while the new passenger,
who had been addressed as Mr. Dodge, and as an old acquaintance also, by
the captain, came so near them as to admit of no further comments. A short
conversation between the two soon let the listeners into the secret that
the traveller had come from America in the spring, whither, after having
made the tour of Europe, he was about to return in the autumn.

"Seen enough, ha!" added the captain, with a friendly nod of the head,
when the other had finished a brief summary of his proceedings in the
eastern hemisphere. "All eyes, and no leisure or inclination for more?"

"I've seen as much as I _warnt_ to see," returned the traveller, with an
emphasis _on_, and a pronunciation _of_, the word we have italicised, that
cannot be committed to paper, but which were eloquence itself on the
subject of self-satisfaction and self-knowledge.

"Well, that is the main point. When a man has got all he wants of a thing,
any addition is like over-ballast. Whenever I can get fifteen knots out of
the ship, I make it a point to be satisfied, especially under close-reefed
topsails and on a taut bowline."

The traveller and the master nodded their heads at each other, like men
who understood more than they expressed; when the former, after inquiring
with marked interest if his room-mate, Sir George Templemore, had arrived,
went below. An intercourse of three days had established something like an
acquaintance between the latter and the passengers she had brought from