For the first few days of the voyage Layton thought of nothing but Clara and her history, till his mind grew actually confused with conflicting guesses about her. “I must tell Quackinboss everything. I must ask his aid to read this mystery, or it will drive me mad,” said he, at last. “He has seen her, too, and liked her.” She was the one solitary figure he had met with at the Villa which seemed to have made a deep impression upon him; and over and over again the American had alluded to the “'little gal' with the long eyelashes, who sang so sweetly.” It was not very easy to catch the Colonel in an unoccupied moment. Ever since the voyage began he was full of engagements. He was an old Transatlantic voyager, deep in all the arts and appliances by which such journeys are rendered agreeable. Such men turn up everywhere. On the Cunard line they organize the whist-parties, the polka on the poop-deck, the sweepstakes on the ship's log, and the cod-fishing on the banks. On the overland route it is they who direct where tents are to be pitched, kids roasted, and Arabs horsewhipped. By a sort of common accord a degree of command is conceded to them, and their authority is admitted without dispute. Now and then a rival will contest the crown, and by his party divide the state; but the community is large enough for such schism, which, after all, is rarely a serious one. The Pretender, in the present case, had come on board by the small vessel which took the pilot away,--a circumstance not without suspicion, and, of course, certain of obtaining its share of disparaging comments, not the less that the gentleman's pretensions were considerable, and his manners imposing. In fact, to use a vulgarism very expressive of the man, “he took on” immensely. He was very indignant at not finding his servant expecting him, and actually out of himself on discovering that a whole stateroom had not been engaged for his accommodation. With all these disappointing circumstances, it was curious enough how soon he reconciled himself to his condition, submitting with great good-humor to all the privations of ordinary mortals; and when, on the third or fourth day of the voyage, he deigned to say that he had drunk worse Madeira, and that the clam soup was really worthy of his approval, his popularity was at once assured. It was really pleasant to witness such condescension, and so, indeed, every one seemed to feel it. All but one, and that one was Quackinboss, who, from the first moment, had conceived a strong dislike against the new arrival, a sentiment he took no pains to conceal or disguise. “He's too p'lite,--he 's too civil by half, sir,--especially with the women folk,” said Quackinboss; “they ain't wholesome when they are so tarnation sweet. As Senator Byles says, 'Bunkum won't make pie-crust, though it 'll serve to butter a man up.' Them's my own sentiments too, sir, and I don't like that stranger.”