The gentleman glanced at him with a knowing look, and said he liked his policy. It was natural, he said, and it pleased him as a philosopher to observe the prejudices of human nature.
`You have brought, I see, sir,' he said, turning round towards Martin, and resting his chin on the top of his stick, `the usual amount of misery and poverty and ignorance and crime, to be located in the bosom of the great Republic. Well, sir! let 'em come on in ship-loads from the old country.
When vessels are about to founder the rats are said to leave 'em. There is considerable of truth, I find, in that remark.'
`The old ship will keep afloat a year or two longer yet, perhaps,' said Martin with a smile, partly occasioned by what the gentleman said, and partly by his manner of saying it, which was odd enough for he emphasised all the small words and syllables in his discourse, and left the others to take care of themselves: as if he thought the larger parts of speech could be trusted alone, but the little ones required to be constantly looked after.
`Hope is said by the poet, sir,' observed the gentleman, `to be the nurse of young Desire.'
Martin signified that he had heard of the cardinal virtue in question serving occasionally in that domestic capacity.
`She will not rear her infant in the present instance, sir, you'll find,' observed the gentleman.
`Time will show,' said Martin.
The gentleman nodded his head gravely; and said, `What is your name, sir?'
Martin told him.
`How old are you, sir?'
Martin told him.
`What is your profession, sir?'
Martin told him that also.
`What is your destination, sir?' inquired the gentleman.
`Really,' said Martin laughing, `I can't satisfy you in that particular, for I don't know it myself.'
`Yes?' said the gentleman.
`No,' said Martin.
The gentleman adjusted his cane under his left arm, and took a more deliberate and complete survey of Martin than he had yet had leisure to make. When he had completed his inspection, he put out his right hand, shook Martin's hand, and said:
`My name is Colonel Diver, sir. I am the Editor of the New York Rowdy Journal.'
Martin received the communication with that degree of respect which an announcement so distinguished appeared to demand.
`The New York Rowdy Journal, sir,' resumed the colonel, `is, as I expect you know, the organ of our aristocracy in this city.'
`Oh! there is an aristocracy here, then?' said Martin. `Of what is it composed?'
`Of intelligence, sir,' replied the colonel; `of intelligence and virtue.
And of their necessary consequence in this republic. Dollars, sir.'
Martin was very glad to hear this, feeling well assured that if intelligence and virtue led, as a matter of course, to the acquisition of dollars, he would speedily become a great capitalist. He was about to express the gratification such news afforded him, when he was interrupted by the captain of the ship, who came up at the moment to shake hands with the colonel; and who, seeing a welldressed stranger on the deck (for Martin had thrown aside his cloak), shook hands with him also. This was an unspeakable relief to Martin, who, in spite of the acknowledged supremacy of intelligence and virtue in that happy country, would have been deeply mortified to appear before Colonel Diver in the poor character of a steerage passenger.
`Well cap'en!' said the colonel.
`Well colonel,' cried the captain. `You're looking most uncommon bright, sir. I can hardly realise its being you, and that's a fact.'
`A good passage, cap'en?' inquired the colonel, taking him aside, `Well now! It was a pretty spanking run, sir,' said, or rather sung, the captain, who was a genuine New Englander: `con-siderin the weather.'
`Yes?' said the colonel.
`Well! It was, sir,' said the captain. `I've just now sent a boy up to your office with the passenger-list, colonel.'
`You haven't got another boy to spare, p'raps, cap'en?' said the colonel, in a tone almost amounting to severity.
`I guess there air a dozen if you want 'em, colonel,' said the captain.
`One moderate big 'un could convey a dozen champagne, perhaps,' observed the colonel, musing, `to my office. You said a spanking run, I think?'
`Well, so I did,' was the reply.
`It's very nigh, you know,' observed the colonel. `I'm glad it was a spanking run, cap'en. Don't mind about quarts if you're short of 'em. The boy can as well bring four-and-twenty pints, and travel twice as once.--A first-rate spanker, cap'en, was it? Yes?'
`A most e -- tarnal spanker,' said the skipper.
`I admire at your good fortun, cap'en. You might loan me a corkscrew at the same time, and half-a-dozen glasses if you liked. However bad the elements combine against my country's noble packetship, the Screw, sir,' said the colonel, turning to Martin, and drawing a flourish on the surface of the deck with his cane, `her passage either way is almost certain to eventuate a spanker!'
The captain, who had the Sewer below at that moment, lunching expensively in one cabin, while the amiable Stabber was drinking himself into a state of blind madness in another, took a cordial leave of his friend the colonel, and hurried away to dispatch the champagne: well knowing (as it afterwards appeared) that if he failed to conciliate the editor of the Rowdy Journal, that potentate would denounce him and his ship in large capitals before he was a day older; and would probably assault the memory of his mother also, who had not been dead more than twenty years. The colonel being again left alone with Martin, checked him as he was moving away, and offered in consideration of his being an Englishman, to show him the town and to introduce him, if such were his desire, to a genteel boarding-house. But before they entered on these proceedings (he said), he would beseech the honour of his company at the office of the Rowdy Journal, to partake of a bottle of champagne of his own importation.