To these desolate and inhospitable shores was bound the good ship Prince Rupert, on board of which Mr Ballantyne took his berth at Gravesend, converted in his own opinion, and by the simple fact of his appointment to the H. B. Company's service, from a raw school-boy into a perfect man of the world, and important member of society. He writes in a very lively style, and there is some quiet humour in his first impressions of the new scenes and associates into which he suddenly found himself thrust. He had not been many hours on board the Prince Rupert, when he beheld a small steamboat approach, freighted with a number of elderly gentlemen. He was enlightened as to who these were by the remark of a sailor, who whispered to a comrade, "I say, Bill, them's the great guns!" In other words, the committee of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company come to visit the three fine vessels which were to sail the following morning for their distant dominions. Of course this was too good a pretext for a dinner to be lost sight of by Englishmen; and before the gentlemen of the committee left the ship, they duly invited the captain and officers, and also, to the new apprentice-clerk's astonishment and delight, begged him to honour them with his company. "I accepted the invitation with extreme politeness; and, from inability to express my joy in any other way, winked to my friend W----, with whom I had become, by this time, pretty familiar. He, having been also invited, winked in return to me; and having disposed of this piece of juvenile freemasonry to our satisfaction, we assisted the crew in giving three hearty cheers as the little steamer darted from us, and proceeded to the shore." At the dinner "nothing intelligible was to be heard, except when a sudden lull in the noise gave a bald-headed old gentleman, near the head of the table, an opportunity of drinking the health of a red-faced old gentleman near the foot, upon whom he bestowed an amount of flattery perfectly bewildering; and, after making the unfortunate red-faced gentleman writhe for half an hour in a fever of modesty, sat down amid thunders of applause. Whether the applause, by the way, was intended for the speaker or the _speakee_, I do not know; but, being quite indifferent, I clapped my hands with the rest. The red-faced gentleman, now purple with excitement, then rose, and, during a solemn silence, delivered himself of a speech, to the effect, that the day then passing was certainly the happiest in his mortal career, and that he felt quite faint with the mighty load of honour just thrown upon his delighted shoulders by his bald-headed friend. The red-faced gentleman then sat down to the national air of Rat-tat-tat, played in full chorus, with knives, forks, spoons, nutcrackers, and knuckles, on the polished surface of the mahogany table."