"I have visited my quarters, and find them very comfortable. I have been in much worse places recently. Steerage is like everything else maritime--like this bewilderingly immense steamer, for example--vastly improved since Robert Louis Stevenson took his trip third-class to New York." "Well, it is a change for a luxury-loving person like my friend the Hon. John Hazel." "It is very condescending of you to call me your friend. Nobody else would do it," replied the Hon. John bitterly. "Condescension be hanged! I'm rather bewildered, that's all, and wish for further particulars. Are you turning over a new leaf, then?" "A new leaf? A thousand of them! I have thrown away the old book, with its blotches and ink-stains. I'm starting a blank volume that I hope will bear inspection and not shock even the rectitude of the Camperdown Committee." "What's the programme?" "I don't quite know yet; it will depend on circumstances. I think it's the West for me--sort of back-to-the-land business. I yearn to become a kind of moral cowboy. It seems the only thing I'm at all equipped for. I can ride well and shoot reasonably straight." "I thought," said Stranleigh, "that phase of life had disappeared with Bret Harte. Is there any money in your inside pocket?" "How could there be?" "Then why not let me grub-stake you, which I believe is the correct Western term." "As how, for instance?" "I'll secure for you a comfortable cabin, and you will pay the damage when you strike oil out West, so, you see, there's no humiliating condescension about the offer." "I'm sure there isn't, and it's very good of you, Stranleigh, but I can't dress the part." "That's easily arranged. Ponderby always over-dresses me. His idea of this world is that there is London, and the rest of the planet is a wilderness. You could no more persuade him that a decent suit might be made in New York than that I am the worst-dressed man in London. You and I are about the same height and build. Ponderby will have in my mountainous luggage anywhere from twenty-five to forty suits never yet worn by me. I don't know on what principle he goes, but as the last time we went to America he took twenty-five new suits, and we crossed in a twenty-five thousand ton boat, he is likely to have at least forty-five suits for this forty-five thousand ton steamship, and he will feel as much pleasure in rigging you out as he took in the crowning of the new King." "Very good of you, Stranleigh, but I cannot accept." "I am pleading for Ponderby's sake. Besides, there's one practical point you have overlooked. If you attempt to land from the steerage--travelling under an assumed name, I suppose----" "Like yourself, Stranleigh."