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“A gentleman by the name of Collins stopping with you?”

“Collins?” was the response.

“Yes, Collins, or Collings, I ain’t sure which,” said the hardy-looking, bronzed seaman, to the gaily-dressed, flippant-mannered, be-whiskered man of vast importance, presiding over the affairs of one of our “first-class hotels.”

“Very indefinite inquiry, then,” said the hotel manager.

“Well, I brought this small package from Bremen for a gentleman who came out passenger with us some time ago; he left it in Bremen–wanted me to fetch it out when the ship returned–here it is.”

“What do you want to leave it here for? We know nothing about the man, sir.”

“You don’t? Well, you ought to, for the gentleman put up here, and told me he’d be around when we got into port again. He was a deuced clever fellow, and you ought to have kept the reckoning of such a man,” said the seaman.

“Ha, ha! we keep so many clever fellows,” said he of the hotel, “that they are no novelties, sir.”

“I wonder then,” said the seaman, “you do not imitate some of them, for there’s no danger of the world’s getting crowded with a crew of good men.”

“If you have any business with us we shall attend to it, sir, but we want none of your impertinence!”

“O, you don’t? Well, Mister, I’ve business aboard of your craft; if you’re the commodore, I’d like you to see that my friend Collins is piped up, or that this package be stowed away where he could come afoul of it. His name is Collins; here it is in black and white, on the parcel, and here’s where I was to drop it.”

One of the “understrappers” overhearing the dispute, whispered his dignified superior that Mr. Collins, an English gentleman, late from Bremen, was in the house, whereupon the dignified empressario, turning to the self-possessed man of the sea, said–

“Ah, well, leave the parcel, leave the parcel; we suppose it’s correct.”

“There it is,” said the seaman; “commodore, you see that the gentleman gets it; and I say,” says the sailor, pushing back his hat and giving his breeches a regular sailor twitch, “I wish you’d please to say to the gentleman, Mr. Collins, you know, that Mr. Brace, first officer of the Triton, would like to see him aboard, any time he’s at leisure.”

But in the multiplicity of greater affairs, the hotel gentleman hardly attempted to listen or attend to the sailor’s message, and Mr. Brace, first officer of the Triton, bore away, muttering to himself–

“These land-crabs mighty apt to put on airs. I’d like to have that powder monkey in my watch about a week–I’d have him down by the lifts and braces!”

Let us suppose it to be in the glorious month of October, when the myriads of travellers by land and ocean are wending their way from the chilly north towards the sunny south, when the invalid seeks the tropics in pursuit of his health, and the speculative man of business returns with his “invoices,” to his shop, or factory, where profit leads the way.

We are on board ship–the Triton ploughing the deep blue waters of the ocean track from Sandy Hook to New Orleans; for October, the weather is rather unruly, damp, and boisterous. We perceive a number of passengers on board, and by near guess of our memory, we see a person or two we have seen before. Our be-whiskered friend of the “first-class hotel,” is there; he does not look so self-possessed and pompous on board the heaving and tossing ship as he did behind his marble slab in “the office.” “The sea, the sea!” as the song says, has quite taken the starch out of our stiff friend, who is not enjoying a first-rate time. And from an overheard conversation between two hardy, noble specimens of men that are men–two officers of the stoutly-timbered ship, the comfort of the be-whiskered gentleman is in danger of a commutation.