"What ess a 'liner'?" interrupted Legrande, sotto voce, to his next neighbor, who pretended not to hear him.
"I need not say that these were the days when we had not lost our carrying trade, when American bottoms—"
"Que est ce, 'bot toom'?" said Legrande, imploringly, to his other friend.
"When American bottoms still carried the bulk of freight, and the supremacy of our flag—"
Here Legrande recognized a patriotic sentiment and responded to it with wild republican enthusiasm, nodding his head violently. Piccadilly noticed it, too, and, seeing an opening for some general discussion on free trade, began half audibly to HIS neighbor: "Most extraordinary thing, you know, your American statesmen—"
"I deserted the ship at Liverpool—"
But here two perfunctory listeners suddenly turned toward the other end of the table, where another guest, our Nevada Bonanza lion, was evidently in the full flood of pioneer anecdote and narration. Calmly disregarding the defection, he went on:—
"I deserted the ship at Liverpool in consequence of my ill-treatment by the second mate,—a man selected for his position by reason of his superior physical strength and recognized brutality. I have been since told that he graduated from the state prison. On the second day out I saw him strike a man senseless with a belaying pin for some trifling breach of discipline. I saw him repeatedly beat and kick sick men—"
"Did you ever read Dana's 'Two Years before the Mast'?" asked Lightbody, our heavy literary man, turning to HIS neighbor, in a distinctly audible whisper. "Ah! there's a book! Got all this sort of thing in it. Dev'lishly well written, too."
The Patagonian (alive for information): "What ess this Dana, eh?"