How welcome "nature's sweet restorer" to the sick and weary traveler, and how "unwelcome" to have its blissful spell disturbed, thought I, as strong-lunged voices banished my slumber. Looking from the little window at the head of my berth, an animated scene was presented. On an elevated stand was perched a well-dressed man, playing on a shrill-voiced accordeon a popular air, accompanying it with a superb voice; the swaying mass of humanity around joining in the chorus; scores of voices in unison making stentorian melody. I was in no mood to sympathize with their enjoyment, but felt rather like the old lady, who, not approving of martial music, as the military pageant was passing, stepped out, and requested the band to stop playing. Till eleven o'clock the noisy music continued, when a tall, red-faced man, who made it his business to tease the musician, dropped a satirical remark in one of the pauses in the concert about a certain duet by a cracked voice and a badly cracked accordeon. The leader of the orchestra, with the over-sensitiveness of his class, declared, in high wrath, he would play no more—an announcement which, very ungratefully, was received with cheers, and the passengers separated for the night. Just from the sick-room, the journey and the loss of rest had so jaded me, that at once, as soon as it was quiet, I fell into a deep sleep. Suddenly, however, I was again aroused, by the falling of some article to the floor, and, rising upon my elbow, saw a face peering in at the door, as if some one was making exertions to enter. It was a swarthy face, with shaggy eyebrows and heavy black beard, and the reader can feel assured it did not impress me at all favorably in the dim light and the dead silence. "What do you want?" I asked. "I have come to turn in!" said my visitor, stepping fully into view. "You have mistaken the number," said I: "this is my room." "I think 'you' are mistaken," he coolly replied: "this is forty-nine, I believe? Yes," added he, stepping back, and reading the number on the door, "forty-nine," then exhibiting a key on which that number was marked. "There is something wrong," I replied, "and I can not submit to intrusion." "And I can not be kept out of my berth," he rejoined, determinedly. "The clerk sent me here not three minutes ago, with this key, and here I intend to stay." "We will see what the clerk says about it," said I, starting out to find him. My intruder followed; but the office lights were out, and save the echo of our footsteps, and the strain and rush of the boat, silence brooded in the vast floating palace. "The clerk has turned in, I guess," said my new acquaintance, "the rascal! He was here not more than three minutes ago. What's to be done?"