“You haven’t a married look about you,” resumed the sailor, “no, nor your wife either. I never was more amazed than when she told me she was married.” “Indeed!” replied Sir Reginald stiffly. “Yes, I put my foot in it rather; I _always_ do if there is the slightest aperture for that extremity. Thinking her a girl come on board with her friends merely to see off some casual acquaintance, I told her that the chances were that many of those embarking would never see England again. A most happy remark, was it not?” observed the sailor emphatically. “And what then?” asked his companion with averted eyes, busily arranging the focus of his opera-glasses. “Oh!” she said, “don’t, my husband is going;” and then she burst into floods of tears. Such oceans I never saw; how they poured down into Portsmouth Dock I shan’t soon forget. “Did she say that I was her husband?” inquired Sir Reginald, looking at him searchingly. “Yes, of course she did. You are, are you not?” returning his gaze with wide-open curious eyes. “I am,” very shortly. “After all, that is not a P. and O. boat. Now she is close, you can easily see that she is one of the Messageries; yes, you were right after all, and I was wrong,” said Sir Reginald, changing the conversation and handing the glasses back to the lieutenant. A few minutes later he moved away, and leaning over the bulwarks in a secluded spot he finished his cheroot alone. Somehow his heart felt lighter than it had done for a long time; and when, some hours later, he went below to his “horse-box,” and found his own particular fellow-passenger asleep and snoring, he took out a cabinet photo of Alice, taken shortly after their wedding, and gazed at it long and earnestly. How happy she looked--how lovely! Infamously as she had treated him, there was no one like his Alice after all. He had the weakness to kiss the pasteboard and put it under his pillow, and in a few minutes was sound asleep. The _Alligator_ of course stopped at Port Saïd, that perennial abode of sand, flies, and dogs; full of melancholy-looking empty cafés chantants, where the performers, ranged on the platforms, and all ready to strike up, appear to be only waiting for an audience, and audience there is none. The sandy streets were full of people--Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics. The home-coming Anglo-Indian, with stupendous mushroom topee swathed in a quarter of a mile of white puggaree, and armed with a large double-covered umbrella, passes the out-going “Griff,” got up in pot-hat, dogskin gloves, cane, etc., with a stony stare. But a very little of Port Saïd goes a long way with most people; and the _Alligator_ passengers, having laid in a supply of eau-de-cologne, oranges, and umbrellas, with which to face the Red Sea, were not sorry to troop back on board to the welcome signal of the “dinner” flag.