with that of my simple repast. Occasionally their tone was lowered, as with the intention of secrecy but I heard a phrase here and a phrase there distinctly enough to grow very curious as to the burden of the whole, and, in fact, to succeed at last in guessing it. The two voices were pitched in an unforgotten key, and equally native to our Cisatlantic air; they seemed to fall upon the muffled medium of surrounding parlance as the rattle of pease on the face of a drum. They were American, however, with a difference; and I had no hesitation in assigning the lighter and softer of the two to the pale, thin gentleman, whom I decidedly preferred to his comrade. The latter began to question him about his voyage.
"Horrible, horrible! I was deadly sick from the hour we left New York."
"Well, you do look considerably reduced," his friend affirmed.
"Reduced! I 've been on the verge of the grave. I have n't slept six hours in three weeks." This was said with great gravity. "Well, I have made the voyage for the last time."
"The deuce you have! You mean to stay here forever?"
"Here, or somewhere! It's likely to be a short forever."
There was a pause; after which: "You 're the
