"I beg your pardon," said a low voice at my side; and, turning, I saw one of the most constant smokers--a very old man--"I beg your pardon, but can you tell me where I came from?" "I am sorry to say I cannot," answered I, as I surveyed a man with a very bewildered and wrinkled face, who seemed to be intently looking for something. "Nor where I am going?" I replied that it was equally impossible. He mused a few moments, and then said slowly, "Do you know, it is a very strange thing that I have not found anybody who can answer me either of those questions. And yet I must have come from somewhere," said he, speculatively--"yes, and I must be going somewhere, and I should really like to know something about it." "I observe," said I, "that you smoke a good deal, and perhaps you find tobacco clouds your brain a little." "Smoke! Smoke!" repeated he, sadly, dwelling upon the words; "why, it all seems smoke to me;" and he looked wistfully around the deck, and I felt quite ready to agree with him. "May I ask what you are here for," inquired I; "perhaps your health, or business of some kind; although I was told it was a pleasure party?" "That's just it," said he; "if I only knew where we were going, I might be able to say something about it. But where are you going?" "I am going home as fast as I can," replied I warmly, for I began to be very uncomfortable. The old man's eyes half closed, and his mind seemed to have struck a scent. "Isn't that where I was going? I believe it is; I wish I knew; I think that's what it is called, Where is home?" And the old man puffed a prodigious cloud of smoke, in which he was quite lost. "It is certainly very smoky," said he, "I came on board this ship to go to--in fact, I meant, as I was saying, I took passage for--." He smoked silently. "I beg your pardon, but where did you say I was going?" Out of the mist where he had been leaning over the side, and gazing earnestly into the surrounding obscurity, now came a pale young man, and put his arm in mine. "I see," said he, "that you have rather a general acquaintance, and, as you know many persons, perhaps you know many things. I am young, you see, but I am a great traveller. I have been all over the world, and in all kinds of conveyances; but," he continued, nervously, starting continually, and looking around, "I haven't yet got abroad." "Not got abroad, and yet you have been everywhere?" "Oh! yes; I know," he replied, hurriedly; "but I mean that I haven't yet got away. I travel constantly, but it does no good--and perhaps you can tell me the secret I want to know. I will pay any sum for it. I am very rich and very young, and, if money cannot buy it, I will give as many years of my life as you require."