person on board who did not look at it, but kept his gaze fixed on the fading town of Liverpool. The Smasher, Gus, and Mr. Peters's unknown ally stood very close to this gentleman, while the detective himself leant over the side of the vessel, near to, though a little apart from, the Irish labourers and rosy-cheeked country girls, who, as steerage passengers, very properly herded together, and did not attempt to contaminate by their presence the minds or the garments of those superior beings who were to occupy state-cabins six feet long by three feet wide, and to have green peas and new milk from the cow all the way out. Presently, the elderly gentleman of rather shabby-genteel but clerical appearance, who had so briefly introduced himself to Gus and the Smasher, made some remarks about the town of Liverpool to the cheerful friend of the late distinguished American.
The cheerful friend took his cigar out of his mouth, smiled, and said, "Yes; it's a thriving town, a small London, really—the metropolis in miniature."
"You know Liverpool very well?" asked the Smasher's companion.
"No, not very well; in point of fact, I know very little of England at all. My visit has been a brief one."
He is evidently an American from this remark, though there is very little of brother Jonathan in his manner.
"Your visit has been a brief one? Indeed. And it has had a very melancholy termination, I regret to perceive," said the persevering stranger, on whose every word the Smasher and Mr. Darley hung respectfully.
"A very melancholy termination," replied the gentleman, with the sweetest smile. "My poor friend had hoped to return to the bosom of his family, and delight them many an evening round the cheerful hearth by the recital of his adventures in, and impressions of, the mother country. You cannot imagine," he continued, speaking very slowly, and as he spoke, allowing his eyes to wander from the stranger to the Smasher, and from the Smasher to Gus, with a glance which, if anything, had the slightest shade of anxiety in it; "you cannot imagine the interest we on the other side of the Atlantic take in everything that occurs in the mother country. We may be great over there—we may be rich over there—we may be universally beloved and respected over there,—but I doubt—I really, after all, doubt," he said sentimentally, "whether we are truly happy. We sigh for the wings of a dove, or to speak practically, for our travelling expenses, that we may come over here and be at rest."
"And yet I conclude it was the especial wish of your late friend to be buried over there?" asked the stranger.
"It was—his dying wish."
"And the melancholy duty of complying with that wish
