steamed from Margate, racing against and beating the _Royal William._ This had the Lord Mayor and Aldermen on board, who had gone down to the extent of the city jurisdiction to meet the Queen, and have an excuse for a good dinner. The deck presented a gay scene, being covered with a military band, and the gaudy-liveried lackeys belonging to the Mansion House, and sheriffs whose clothes were one continuous mass of gold lace and frippery, shining beautifully brilliant in the midday sun. The royal yacht, with its crimson and gold pennant floating on the breeze, came towering up at a rapid pace, with the Queen sitting under a canopy on deck. As we neared, all hats were off, and three cheers--or at least as many as we could wedge in during the time the cortege took to sweep past us--were given, our band consisting of three brandy-faced musicians, striking up _God save the King_--a compliment which Her Majesty acknowledged by a little mandarining; and before the majority of the passengers had recovered from the astonishment produced by meeting a live Queen on the Thames, the whole fleet had shot out of sight. By the time the ripple on the water, raised by their progress, had subsided, we had all relapsed into our former state of apathy and sullenness. A duller or staider set I never saw outside a Quakers' meeting. Still the beggars eat, as when does a cockney not in the open air? The stewards of these steamboats must make a rare thing of their places, for they have plenty of custom at their own prices. In fact, being in a steamboat is a species of personal incarceration, and you have only the option between bringing your own prog, or taking theirs at whatever they choose to charge--unless, indeed, a person prefers going without any. Jorrocks took nothing. He laid down again after the Queen had passed, and never looked up until we were a mile or two off Herne Bay. With the reader's permission, we will suppose that we have just landed, and, bags in hand, ascended the flight of steps that conduct passengers, as it were, from the briny ocean on to the stage of life.