“My good Sir--you’ll excuse me. The case is nobody’s but my own. _You_ are a regular passenger. You have a right to be in this packet--you have a right to go to Holyhead--or to Liverpool--or to Gibraltar,--or to the world’s end--_if--you--like_. But _I_ choose to be in Dublin. What right have I to be here then? Not--one--atom! I’ve no right to be in this vessel--and the Captain there knows it. I’ve no right (stamping) to be on this deck! I have no more right to be tossing at sea (waving his arms up and down) than the Pigeon House!” “It is a very unpleasant situation, I allow, Sir,” said the Captain to the stout Passenger. “But, as I have told the gentleman, my hands are tied. I can do nothing--though nobody is more sorry for his inconvenience.” “Inconvenience be hanged!” exclaimed the Oddity, in a passion at last. “It is NO inconvenience, Sir! Not--the--smallest. But that makes no difference as to my being here. It’s that--and that alone,--I dispute all right to!” [Illustration: SEA RIDDLE. “DO YOU GIVE IT UP?”] “Well, but my dear, good Sir,” expostulated the pompous man; “admitting the justice of your premises, the hardship is confessedly without remedy.” “To be sure it is,” said the Captain, “every inch of it. All I can say is, that the gentleman’s passage shall be no expense to him!” “Thankee--of _course_ not,” said the Original with a sneer. “I’ve no right to put my hand in my pocket! Not that I mind expense. But it’s my right I stand up for, and I defy you both to prove that I have any right--or any shadow of a right--to be in your company! I’ll tell you what, Skipper”--but before he could finish the sentence, he turned suddenly pale, made a most grotesque wry face, and rushed forward to the bow of the vessel. The Captain exchanged a significant smile with the stout gentleman; but before they had quite spoken their minds of the absent character, he came scrambling back to the binnacle, upon which he rested with both hands, while he thrust his working visage within a foot of the skipper’s face. [Illustration: “CHARMING SPOTS ABOUT THIS PART OF THE RIVER.”] “There, Skipper!--now, Mr. What d’ye call--What do you both say to _that_? What right have I to be sick--as sick as a dog? I’ve no right to be squeamish! I’m not a passenger. I’ve no right to go tumbling over ropes and pails and what not to the ship’s head!” “But my good Sir,”--began the pompous man. “Don’t Sir me, Sir! _You_ took your own passage. You have a _right_ to be sick--You’ve a right to go to the side every five minutes--you’ve a right to DIE of it! But it’s the reverse with me--I have no right of the sort!” [Illustration: “WHAT RIGHT HAVE YOU IN MY STEEL TRAP?”]