Chapter 23 - Page 2

importer of French silks embarking in the soap-boning
business.

So, not being a liner, the Highlander of course did not have very ample
accommodations for cabin passengers. I believe there were not more than
five or six state-rooms, with two or three berths in each. At any rate,
on this particular voyage she only carried out one regular
cabin-passenger; that is, a person previously unacquainted with the
captain, who paid his fare down, and came on board soberly, and in a
business-like manner with his baggage.

He was an extremely little man, that solitary cabin-passenger--the
passenger who came on board in a business-like manner with his baggage;
never spoke to any one, and the captain seldom spoke to him.

Perhaps he was a deputy from the Deaf and Dumb Institution in New York,
going over to London to address the public in pantomime at Exeter Hall
concerning the signs of the times.

He was always in a brown study; sometimes sitting on the quarter-deck
with arms folded, and head hanging upon his chest. Then he would rise,
and gaze out to windward, as if he had suddenly discovered a friend. But
looking disappointed, would retire slowly into his state-room, where you
could see him through the little window, in an irregular sitting
position, with the back part of him inserted into his berth, and his
head, arms, and legs hanging out, buried in profound meditation, with
his fore-finger aside of his nose. He never was seen reading; never took
a hand at cards; never smoked; never drank wine; never conversed; and
never staid to the dessert at dinner-time.

He seemed the true microcosm, or little world to himself: standing in no
need of levying contributions upon the surrounding universe. Conjecture
was lost in speculating as to who he was, and what was his business. The
sailors, who are always curious with regard to such matters, and
criticise cabin-passengers more than cabin-passengers are perhaps aware
at the time, completely exhausted themselves in suppositions, some of
which are characteristically curious.

One of the crew said he was a mysterious bearer of secret dispatches to
the English court; others opined that he was a traveling surgeon and
bonesetter, but for what reason they thought so, I never could learn;
and others declared that he must either be an unprincipled bigamist,
flying from his last wife and several small children; or a scoundrelly
forger, bank-robber, or general burglar, who was returning to his
beloved country with his ill-gotten booty. One observing sailor was of
opinion that he was an English murderer, overwhelmed with speechless
remorse, and returning home to make a full confession and be hanged.

But it was a little singular, that among all their sage and