"Ah! how was that?" asked Wallbridge.
"The fellow offered to show me round town, and, as I was kind of lonesome, I went with him. We called at a place to pay a bill he owed. He had a check for three hundred dollars; but the man he owed couldn't give him the change, so I lent him my hundred dollars, and took the check till he paid me. Then my kind friend went into another room; and that's the last I ever saw of him. I couldn't find him, but I did find that the check was good for nothing. I hadn't a dollar left. At one of the piers I came across a schooner that wanted a cook, and I shipped right off. Then the cap'n's nephew wanted to cook for him, after we got to Bangor, and I was out of a job. I worked in an eating-house for a while, cooking; but my health was so bad I wanted to go to a warm climate; so I shipped in this brig for the West Indies. It was warm enough there, but I didn't get any better. I don't think I'm as stout as I was when I left Bangor. I shall not hold out much longer."
"O, yes, you will. You may live to be a hundred years old yet," added Wallbridge, rather lightly.
"No; my end isn't a great way off," added the steward, with a sigh, as the passenger, evidently not pleased with the turn the conversation had taken, walked away from the galley.
Any one who looked at Harvey Barth would have found no difficulty in accepting his gloomy prediction; and yet he was, as events occurred, farther from his end than his companions in the brig. The steward sat before his stove, gazing at the planks of the deck under his feet. He was deeply impressed by the words he had uttered if the passenger was not. He had improved the opportunity, while the weather was calm to write up his diary, and perhaps the thoughts he had expressed on its pages had started a train of gloomy reflections. The future seemed to have nothing inviting to him, and his attention was fixed upon an open grave at no great distance before him in the pathway of his life. Beyond that he had hardly taught himself to look; if he had he would, doubtless, have been less sad and gloomy.
His work for the day had all been done; supper in the cabin had been served, and the beef and hard bread had been given to the crew two hours before. It was a day in August, and the sun had lingered long above the horizon. Harvey had finished writing in his diary when the passenger interrupted him; but, apparently to change the current of his thoughts, he took the book from the box, and began to read what he had written.
"I don't know what his name is, but I don't believe it's Wallbridge," said he, to himself, as the last page recalled the reflections which had caused him to make some of the entries in the book. "That wasn't the name I found on the paper in his state-room, though the initials were the same. I don't see what he changed his name for; but that's none of my business. I only hope he hasn't been doing anything wrong."
"My pipe's gone out," said Wallbridge, presenting himself at the door of the galley again. "I want another coal of fire."
The steward carefully secured his book again, and returned it to the box, while the passenger was lighting his pipe.
"Rather a still time just now," said the steward, alluding to the weather, as Wallbridge puffed away at his pipe.