hours. If he'd only given us a little more of his company when he was
awake, he wouldn't have gallivanted round at night, and we'd have been
thirty miles nearer port." Equal amusement was created by the humorous
suggestion that the unfortunate man had never been entirely awake during
the voyage, and that he would now, probably for the first time, really
make the acquaintance of his fellow-voyagers. Listening to this
badinage with bland tolerance, Senor Perkins no doubt felt that, for the
maintenance of that perfect amity he so ardently apostrophized, it was
just as well that Hurlstone was in his state-room, and out of hearing.
He would have been more satisfied, however, had he been permitted to
hear the feminine comments on this incident. In the eyes of the lady
passengers Mr. Hurlstone was more a hero than ever; his mysterious
malady invested him with a vague and spiritual interest; his escape from
the awful fate reserved to him, in their excited fancy, gave him the
eclat of having ACTUALLY survived it; while the supposed real incident
of his fall through the hatchway lent him the additional lustre of a
wounded and crippled man. That prostrate condition of active humanity,
which so irresistibly appeals to the feminine imagination as segregating
their victim from the distractions of his own sex, and, as it were,
delivering him helpless into their hands, was at once their opportunity,
and his. All the ladies volunteered to nurse him; it was with difficulty
that Mrs. Brimmer and Mrs. Markham, reinforced with bandages, flannels,
and liniments, and supported by different theories, could be kept from
the door of his state-room. Jellies, potted meats, and delicacies from
their private stores appeared on trays at his bedside, to be courteously
declined by the Senor Perkins, in his new functions of a benevolent type
of Sancho Panza physician. To say that this pleased the gentle optimism
of the Senor is unnecessary. Even while his companion writhed under the
sting of this enforced compassion, the good man beamed philosophically
|