all allowed our souls to drift away in “The Last Rose of Summer,” the Grinder in the midst of the beautiful strain brought us plump to earth by turning out the remark that “a bewgle made abeout as nice music as any instrument goin’, ef it was well played.” Had he been thrown overboard he would have drifted ashore, and bored the natives to death with a long and lifeless story of his escape from drowning. Dames Rumor and Gossip are at home on the high seas. They commence operations as soon as their stomachs are on sea-legs. Everybody then undergoes an inspection from everybody else, and we report to each other. Mrs. Bluster! Mrs. Bluster’s conduct is perfectly scandalous before we have been out a week: she nibbling around young men of one-half--ay, one-fourth--her age! The young miss who came on board in charge of an elderly couple has seceded from them; promenades the hurricane-deck very late with a dashing young Californian; but then birds of a feather, male and female, will flock together. Mr. Bleareye is full of brandy every morning before ten o’clock; and the “catamaran” with the thin-legged and subjected husband does nothing but talk of her home in ----. We know the color and pattern of her carpets, the number of her servants, the quality of her plate, and yesterday she brought out her jewelry and made thereof a public exhibition in the saloon. All this is faithfully and promptly borne per rail over the Isthmus, and goes over to the Atlantic steamer. I am conscientious in this matter of gossip: I had made resolutions. There was a lady likewise conscientious on board, and one night upon the quarter-deck, when we had talked propriety threadbare, when we were both bursting with our fill of observation, we met each other halfway and confessed that unless we indulged ourselves also in a little scandal we should die, and then, the flood-gates being opened, how we riddled them! But there is a difference between criticism of character and downright scandal, you know; in that way did we poultice our bruised consciences.