"Why, the captain tells me that the stranger we met the other day is a Mr Von Kniper, some great man or other, with whom he has long been acquainted; and that he has sent to request the captain to bring me to dine with him. The captain is very good-natured about it, and says that he shall be very happy to take me. But it will be difficult to find a dress to go in. It will never do to appear in a round jacket. So, taking all things into consideration, I think that I shall decline the honour." "That would be a pity," said I. "You don't know to what the visit may lead." "To be stared at and patronised as the common sailor who can draw and talk German; and then to have the cold shoulder turned towards me the next day, or to be passed unrecognised!" he answered, with no little bitterness. "I am more independent, and safer from annoyance, in the position I have chosen to occupy. I'll not go out of it." I tried to reason him out of his resolution. "It may be a turning-point in your fortune," I observed. "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune," he repeated. "You don't suppose that the flood will ever set in for me. The current has been too long running the other way for me ever to expect it to change. I am content to let it continue its old course, and swim merrily with it." Had Newman been left to himself, I do not know that he would have altered his opinion; but soon after this the captain again sent to see him. "Well, Jack, I must needs go where the wind drives," he remarked, as he came forward. "Our skipper is certainly a very good-natured fellow. He not only insists on my going with him to the house of Mynheer Von Kniper, but tells me that he has made arrangements for rigging me out in full fig for the occasion. It will be very good fun, I daresay; and I only wish that you could be there to enjoy it." "If I saw you happy, I should be happy; but I could not enjoy such a scene as that myself. I should feel so completely like a fish out of water." "Oh, nonsense!" he answered; "a man has only quietly to observe what others do, and not to attempt to show himself off, or to broach any subject, and he will generally pass muster as a well-behaved person. However, as Mr Von Kniper did not ask you to come, of course you cannot go. Well, I dare say that I shall have enough to make you laugh when I come back."