Within a short time, the store, with all its contents, was disposed of by auction, to Messrs. Ellison and McMillan. Messrs. Kitchen and Richardson departed elsewhere, but I was retained by the new firm. Mrs. Cornelia Speake and her two children removed to Louisville, and I never saw either of them again. About this time there came to Mrs. Williams’s boarding-house a blue-eyed and fair-haired lad, of about my own age, seeking lodgings. As the house was full, the landlady insisted on accommodating him in my room, and bedding him with me; and, on finding that the boy was English, and just arrived from Liverpool, I assented to her arrangement. My intended bed-fellow called himself Dick Heaton, and described himself as having left Liverpool in the ship ‘Pocahontas,’ as a cabin-boy. He also had been a victim to the hellish brutality of Americans at sea, the steward apparently having been as callous and cruel as Nelson of the ‘Windermere’; and, no sooner had his ship touched the pier, than the boy fled, as from a fury. Scarcely anything could have been better calculated to win my sympathy than the recital of experiences similar to my own, by one of my own age, and hailing from the same port that I had come from. Dick was clever and intelligent, though not well educated; but, to make up for his deficiency in learning, he was gifted with a remarkable fluency, and had one of the cheeriest laughs, and a prettiness of manner which made up for all defects. Our bed was a spacious four-poster, and four slim lads like us might have been easily accommodated in it. I observed, however, with silent surprise, that he was so modest he would not retire by candle-light, and that when he got into bed he lay on the verge of it, far removed from contact with me. When I rose in the morning, I found that he was not undressed, which he explained by saying that he had turned in thus from the habit of holding himself ready for a call. On beginning his voyage he had been so severely thrashed for a delay caused by dressing, that he had scarcely dared to take off his boots during the whole voyage. He also told me that, when he had discovered how almost impossible it was to avoid a beating from the steward and cook, he had resorted to the expedient of padding the seat of his trousers with cotton, and wearing a pad of the same material along the spine, but to avert suspicion that he was thus cunningly fortified against the blows, he had always continued to howl as freely as before. The naïveté of the revelation was most amusing, though I was surprised at the shameless way in which he disclosed his tricks and cowardly fears. However, it did not deter me from responding to his friendly advances, and in two days I came to regard him as a very charming companion. The third morning, being Sunday, we chatted longer abed; but, when rising together, I cast a glance at his hips, and remarked that he need have no fear of being thrashed at New Orleans.