James Heartsease and Harry Wall are bracketed in the way-bill, as they were bracketed in heart. They were friends who had travelled together all over the world. They were enthusiastic sketchers; and it was whispered that they were writing a book, which caused them to be looked up to with a kind of veneration. Rough-and-Ready was as great a mystery as Mr. Bracegirdle, but whereas nothing was known of Mr. Bracegirdle's antecedents, so many stories were current concerning Rough-and-Ready, that the difficulty was to hit upon the right one. None of them were at all creditable to him. One story was, that he was a bushranger; another, that he was a stockman, who had shot down any number of blacks; another, that he was a runaway convict. The name he chose to go by fitted any one or all of these stories. He engaged his passage in the name of Mr. Rough; but before he had been on board half an hour, every sailor knew him as Rough-and-Ready. The lady passengers cast cold looks upon him; but the sailors adored him; and he, taking the aversion of the women and the admiration of the men very philosophically, was as much at home on board the "Merry Andrew" as the captain himself. Captain Liddle saw nothing objectionable in Rough-and-Ready. He was prone, as you know, to form his own judgments of people, and was one of the small minority of men in the world who decline to be led by the nose. There was nothing very smooth or polished about Rough-and-Ready, as was implied by his name; but he had a bright eye, a free manner, and a civil tongue--sufficient recommendations to Captain Liddle's good favor.