On the Sunday, among a party of men who were talking in our
companion, Steerage No.
2 and 3, we remarked a new figure. He wore
tweed clothes, well enough made if not very fresh, and a plain
smoking-cap. His face was pale, with pale eyes, and spiritedly
enough designed; but though not yet thirty, a sort of blackguardly
degeneration had already overtaken his features. The fine nose had
grown fleshy towards the point, the pale eyes were sunk in fat.
His hands were strong and elegant; his experience of life evidently
varied; his speech full of pith and verve; his manners forward, but
perfectly presentable. The lad who helped in the second cabin told
me, in answer to a question, that he did not know who he was, but
thought, 'by his way of speaking, and because he was so polite,
that he was some one from the saloon.'
I was not so sure, for to me there was something equivocal in his
air and bearing. He might have been, I thought, the son of some
good family who had fallen early into dissipation and run from
home. But, making every allowance, how admirable was his talk! I
wish you could have heard hin, tell his own stories. They were so
swingingly set forth, in such dramatic language, and illustrated
here and there by such luminous bits of acting, that they could
only lose in any reproduction. There were tales of the P. and O.
Company, where he had been an officer; of the East Indies, where in
former years he had lived lavishly; of the Royal Engineers, where
he had served for a period; and of a dozen other sides of life,
each introducing some vigorous thumb-nail portrait.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 57 of 262
Words from 14945 to 15239
of 70588
