Four stowaways had been found aboard our ship
before she left the Clyde, but these two had alone escaped the
ignominy of being put ashore. Alick, my acquaintance of last
night, was Scots by birth, and by trade a practical engineer; the
other was from Devonshire, and had been to sea before the mast.
Two people more unlike by training, character, and habits it would
be hard to imagine; yet here they were together, scrubbing paint.
Alick had held all sorts of good situations, and wasted many
opportunities in life. I have heard him end a story with these
words: 'That was in my golden days, when I used finger-glasses.'
Situation after situation failed him; then followed the depression
of trade, and for months he had hung round with other idlers,
playing marbles all day in the West Park, and going home at night
to tell his landlady how he had been seeking for a job. I believe
this kind of existence was not unpleasant to Alick himself, and he
might have long continued to enjoy idleness and a life on tick; but
he had a comrade, let us call him Brown, who grew restive. This
fellow was continually threatening to slip his cable for the
States, and at last, one Wednesday, Glasgow was left widowed of her
Brown. Some months afterwards, Alick met another old chum in
Sauchiehall Street.
'By the bye, Alick,' said he, 'I met a gentleman in New York who
was asking for you.'
'Who was that?' asked Alick.
'The new second engineer on board the So-and-so,' was the reply.
'Well, and who is he?'
'Brown, to be sure.'
For Brown had been one of the fortunate quartette aboard the
Circassia. If that was the way of it in the States, Alick thought
it was high time to follow Brown's example. He spent his last day,
as he put it, 'reviewing the yeomanry,' and the next morning says
he to his landlady, 'Mrs. X., I'll not take porridge to-day,
please; I'll take some eggs.'
'Why, have you found a job?' she asked, delighted.
'Well, yes,' returned the perfidious Alick; 'I think I'll start to-
day.'
And so, well lined with eggs, start he did, but for America. I am
afraid that landlady has seen the last of him.
It was easy enough to get on board in the confusion that attends a
vessel's departure; and in one of the dark corners of Steerage No.
1, flat in a bunk and with an empty stomach, Alick made the voyage
from the Broomielaw to Greenock.
