“Anywhere--any carriage--what class you please,” muttered I. “There, yonder,” broke I in, hastily,--“where that lady in mourning has just got in.” “All full there, sir,” replied the man; “step in here.”: And away we went. My compartment contained but one passenger; he wore a gold band round his oil-skin cap, and seemed the captain of a mail steamer, or Admiralty agent; he merely glanced at me as I came in, and went on reading his newspaper. “Going north, I suppose?” said he, bluntly, after a pause of some time. “Going to Germany?” “No” said I, rather astonished at his giving me this destination. “I 'm for Brussels.” “We shall have a rough night of it, outside; glass is falling suddenly, and the wind has chopped round to the southward and eastward!” “I'm sorry for it,” said I. “I'm but an indifferent sailor.” “Well, I 'll tell you what to do: just turn into my cabin, you 'll have it all to yourself; lie down flat on your back the moment you get aboard; tell the steward to give you a strong glass of brandy-and-water--the captain's brandy say, for it is rare old stuff, and a perfect cordial, and my name ain't Slidders if you don't sleep all the way across.” I really had no words for such unexpected generosity; how was I to believe my ears at such a kind proposal of a perfect stranger? Was it anything in my appearance that could have marked me out as an object for these attentions? “I don't know how to thank you enough,” said I, in confusion; “and when I think that we meet now for the first time--” “What does that signify?” said he, in the same short way. “I 've met pretty nigh all of you by this time. I 've been a matter of eleven years on this station!” “Met pretty nigh all of us!” What does that mean? Who and what are we? He can't mean the Pottses, for I 'm the first who ever travelled even thus far! But I was not given leisure to follow up the inquiry, for he went on to say how in all that time of eleven years he had never seen threatenings of a worse night than that before us. “Then why venture out?” asked I, timidly. “They must have the bags over there; that's the reason,” said he, curtly: “besides, who's to say when he won't meet dirty weather at sea,--one takes rough and smooth in this life, eh?” The observation was not remarkable for originality, but I liked it. I like the reflective turn, no matter how beaten the path it may select for its exercise. “It's a short trip,--some five or six hours at most,” said he; “but it's wonderful what ugly weather one sees in it. It's always so in these narrow seas.” “Yes,” said I, concurringly, “these petty channels, like the small events of our life, are often the sources of our greatest perils.”