I Must Now Take A
Humbler View; For Here I Was Among My Own Countrymen, Somewhat
Roughly Clad To Be Sure, But With Every Advantage Of Speech And
Manner; And I Am Bound To Confess That I Passed For Nearly Anything
You Please Except An Educated Gentleman.
The sailors called me
'mate,' the officers addressed me as 'my man,' my comrades accepted
me without hesitation for a person of their own character and
experience, but with some curious information.
One, a mason
himself, believed I was a mason; several, and among these at least
one of the seaman, judged me to be a petty officer in the American
navy; and I was so often set down for a practical engineer that at
last I had not the heart to deny it. From all these guesses I drew
one conclusion, which told against the insight of my companions.
They might be close observers in their own way, and read the
manners in the face; but it was plain that they did not extend
their observation to the hands.
To the saloon passengers also I sustained my part without a hitch.
It is true I came little in their way; but when we did encounter,
there was no recognition in their eye, although I confess I
sometimes courted it in silence. All these, my inferiors and
equals, took me, like the transformed monarch in the story, for a
mere common, human man. They gave me a hard, dead look, with the
flesh about the eye kept unrelaxed.
With the women this surprised me less, as I had already
experimented on the sex by going abroad through a suburban part of
London simply attired in a sleeve-waistcoat. The result was
curious. I then learned for the first time, and by the exhaustive
process, how much attention ladies are accustomed to bestow on all
male creatures of their own station; for, in my humble rig, each
one who went by me caused me a certain shock of surprise and a
sense of something wanting. In my normal circumstances, it
appeared every young lady must have paid me some tribute of a
glance; and though I had often not detected it when it was given, I
was well aware of its absence when it was withheld. My height
seemed to decrease with every woman who passed me, for she passed
me like a dog. This is one of my grounds for supposing that what
are called the upper classes may sometimes produce a disagreeable
impression in what are called the lower; and I wish some one would
continue my experiment, and find out exactly at what stage of
toilette a man becomes invisible to the well-regulated female eye.
Here on shipboard the matter was put to a more complete test; for,
even with the addition of speech and manner, I passed among the
ladies for precisely the average man of the steerage. It was one
afternoon that I saw this demonstrated.
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