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Dear old Grill offered to talk French at table, and we tried it for a few days. But it proved he picked up his pronunciation at St. Catherine’s, among the boatmen there, and he would say shwo for “horses,” where the book said chevaux. Our talk, on the other hand, was not Parisian,–but it was not Catherinian,–and we subsided into English again.

So sped along these blessed eight days. I told Fausta thus much of my story, that I was going to seek my fortune in New York. She, of course, knew nothing of me but what she saw, and she told me nothing of her story.

But I was very sorry when we came into the basin at Troy, for I knew then that in all reason I must take the steamboat down. And I was very glad,–I have seldom in my life been so glad,–when I found that she also was going to New York immediately. She accepted, very pleasantly, my offer to carry her trunk to the Isaac Newton for her, and to act as her escort to the city. For me, my trunk,

“in danger tried,”
Swung in my hand,–“nor left my side.”

My earthly possessions were few anywhere. I had left at Attica most of what they were. Through the voyage I had been man enough to keep on a working-gear fit for a workman’s duty. And old Grills had not yet grace enough to keep his boat still on Sunday. How one remembers little things! I can remember each touch of the toilet, as, in that corner of a dark cuddy where I had shared “Zekiel’s” bunk with him. I dressed myself with one of my two white shirts, and with the change of raiment which had been tight squeezed in my portmanteau. The old overcoat was the best part of it, as in a finite world it often is. I sold my felt hat to Zekiel, and appeared with a light travelling-cap. I do not know how Fausta liked my metamorphosis. I only know that, like butterflies, for a day or two after they go through theirs, I felt decidedly cold.

As Carter, the canal man, I had carried Fausta’s trunk on board. As Mr. Carter, I gave her my arm, led her to the gangway of the Newton, took her passage and mine, and afterwards walked and sat through the splendid moonlight of the first four hours down the river.

Miss Jones determined that evening to breakfast on the boat. Be it observed that I did not then know her by any other name. She was to go to an aunt’s house, and she knew that if she left the boat on its early arrival in New York, she would disturb that lady by a premature ringing at her bell. I had no reason for haste, as the reader knows. The distribution of the cyclopaedias was not to take place till the next day, and that absurd trifle was the only distinct excuse I had to myself for being in New York at all. I asked Miss Jones, therefore, if I might not be her escort still to her aunt’s house. I had said it would be hard to break off our pleasant journey before I had seen where she lived, and I thought she seemed relieved to know that she should not be wholly a stranger on her arrival. It was clear enough that her aunt would send no one to meet her.

These preliminaries adjusted, we parted to our respective cabins. And when, the next morning, at that unearthly hour demanded by Philadelphia trains and other exigencies, the Newton made her dock, I rejoiced that breakfast was not till seven o’clock, that I had two hours more of the berth, which was luxury compared to Zekiel’s bunk,–I turned upon my other side and slept on.

Sorry enough for that morning nap was I for the next thirty-six hours. For when I went on deck, and sent in the stewardess to tell Miss Jones that I was waiting for her, and then took from her the check for her trunk, I woke to the misery of finding that, in that treacherous two hours, some pirate from the pier had stepped on board, had seized the waiting trunk, left almost alone, while the baggage-master’s back was turned, and that, to a certainty, it was lost. I did not return to Fausta with this story till the breakfast-bell had long passed and the breakfast was very cold. I did not then tell it to her till I had seen her eat her breakfast with an appetite much better than mine. I had already offered up stairs the largest reward to anybody who would bring it back which my scanty purse would pay. I had spoken to the clerk, who had sent for a policeman. I could do nothing more, and I did not choose to ruin her chop and coffee by ill-timed news. The officer came before breakfast was over, and called me from table.