His taste was for the society of gentlemen, of whom, with
the reader's permission, there was no lack in our five steerages and
second cabin; and he avoided the rough and positive with a girlish
shrinking. Mackay, partly from his superior powers of mind, which
rendered him incomprehensible, partly from his extreme opinions, was
especially distasteful to the Irishman. I have seen him slink off
with backward looks of terror and offended delicacy, while the other,
in his witty, ugly way, had been professing hostility to God, and an
extreme theatrical readiness to be shipwrecked on the spot. These
utterances hurt the little coachman's modesty like a bad word.
THE SICK MAN
One night Jones, the young O'Reilly, and myself were walking arm-in-
arm and briskly up and down the deck. Six bells had rung; a head-
wind blew chill and fitful, the fog was closing in with a sprinkle of
rain, and the fog-whistle had been turned on, and now divided time
with its unwelcome outcries, loud like a bull, thrilling and intense
like a mosquito. Even the watch lay somewhere snugly out of sight.
For some time we observed something lying black and huddled in the
scuppers, which at last heaved a little and moaned aloud.
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