"The character is more ambitiously conceived than skilfully maintained," replied Eve, who had need of all her _retenue_ of manner to abstain from laughing outright. "Were I to hazard a conjecture, it would be to describe the gentleman as a collector of costumes, who had taken a fancy to exhibit an assortment of his riches on his own person. Mademoiselle Viefville, you, who so well understand costumes, may tell us from what countries the separate parts of that attire have been collected?" "I can answer for the shop in Berlin where the travelling cap was purchased," returned the amused governess; "in no other part of the world can a parallel be found." "I should think, ma'am," put in Nanny, with the quiet simplicity of her nature as well as of her habits, "that the gentleman must have bought his boots in Paris, for they seem to pinch his feet, and all the Paris boots and shoes pinch one's feet,--at least, all mine did." "The watch-guard is stamped 'Geneva,'" continued Eve. "The coat comes from Frankfort: _c'est une equivoque_." "And the pipe from Dresden, Mademoiselle Viefville." "The _conchiglia_ savours of Rome, and the little chain annexed bespeaks the Rialto; while the _moustaches_ are anything but _indigenes_, and the _tout ensemble_ the world: the man is travelled, at least." Eve's eyes sparkled with humour as she said this: while the new passenger, who had been addressed as Mr. Dodge, and as an old acquaintance also, by the captain, came so near them as to admit of no further comments. A short conversation between the two soon let the listeners into the secret that the traveller had come from America in the spring, whither, after having made the tour of Europe, he was about to return in the autumn. "Seen enough, ha!" added the captain, with a friendly nod of the head, when the other had finished a brief summary of his proceedings in the eastern hemisphere. "All eyes, and no leisure or inclination for more?" "I've seen as much as I _warnt_ to see," returned the traveller, with an emphasis _on_, and a pronunciation _of_, the word we have italicised, that cannot be committed to paper, but which were eloquence itself on the subject of self-satisfaction and self-knowledge. "Well, that is the main point. When a man has got all he wants of a thing, any addition is like over-ballast. Whenever I can get fifteen knots out of the ship, I make it a point to be satisfied, especially under close-reefed topsails and on a taut bowline." The traveller and the master nodded their heads at each other, like men who understood more than they expressed; when the former, after inquiring with marked interest if his room-mate, Sir George Templemore, had arrived, went below. An intercourse of three days had established something like an acquaintance between the latter and the passengers she had brought from the River, and turning his red quizzical face towards the ladies, he observed with inimitable gravity,