"Well, perhaps not so strange either," said Mr. M'Cosh, in his sawdusty voice, with his mouth full.
"Should you pass a steamer at night," said I, "would you stop and hail her?"
He reflected, and then said, he "thocht not."
"Then our opportunities for getting home must be limited to daylight?" said I.
This seemed too obvious to him, I suppose, to need a response.
"Are you in a very great hurry, Mr. Barclay, to get home?" exclaimed a passenger, with a slight cast in his eye that gave a turn of humour to his face.
"Why, yes," I answered, with a glance at Grace, who was eating quietly at my side, seldom looking up, though she was as much stared at, even after all these hours, as decent manners would permit. "You will please remember that we are without luggage."
"Eh, but that is to be managed, I think. There are many of us here of both sexes," continued the gentleman with the cast in his eye, sending a squint along the row of people on either side of the table. "You should see New Zealand, sir. The country abounds with fine and noble prospects, and I do not think," he added, with a smile, "that you will find occasion to complain of a want of hospitality."
"I am greatly obliged," said I, giving him a bow; "but New Zealand is a little distant for the moment."
The subject of New Zealand was now, however, started, and the conversation on its harbours, revenue, political parties, debts, prospects, and the like, was exceedingly animated, and lasted pretty nearly through the dinner. Though Grace and I were seated at the foremost end of the table, removed nearly by the whole length of it from the captain, I was sensible that this talk to those near him mainly concerned us. He had, as I have said, Mrs. Barstow on one hand, and on the other sat the lady with the thin lips and sausage curls. I would notice him turn first to one, then to the other, his round sea-coloured face broadened by an arch knowing smile; then Mrs. Barstow would look at us; then the lady with the thin lips would stretch her neck to take a peep down the line in which we sat; others would also look, smirk a bit, and address themselves, with amused faces, in a low voice to Captain Parsons.