"Mr. Ferguson," I said--"Mr. Ferguson," for he was withdrawing his head, "do you not remember me?" "Not quite sure," he replied; "I have met with many sailors in my time; but I must just see." He had stepped down to the door ere I had discovered my mistake. He was a taller and stronger-looking man than my friend, and his senior apparently by six or eight years; but nothing could be more striking than the resemblance which he bore to him, both in face and figure. I apologized. "But have you not a brother, a native of Edinburgh," I inquired, "who studied at St. Andrew's about four years ago?--never before, certainly, did I see so remarkable a likeness." --"As that which I bear to Robert?" he said. "Happy to hear it. Robert is a brother of whom a man may well be proud, and I am glad to resemble him in any way. But you must go in with me, and tell me all you know regarding him. He was a thin pale slip of a boy when I left Scotland--a mighty reader, and fond of sauntering into by-holes and corners; I scarcely knew what to make of him; but he has made much of himself. His name has been blown far and wide within the last two years." He showed me through a large waste apartment, furnished with a few deal seats, and with here and there a fencing foil leaning against the wall, into a sort of closet at the upper end, separated from the main room by a partition of undressed slabs. There was a charcoal stove in the one corner, and a truckle bed in the other; a few shelves laden with books ran along the wall; there was a small chest raised on a stool immediately below the window, to serve as a writing desk, and another stool standing beside it. A few cooking utensils scattered round the room, and a corner cupboard, completed the entire furniture of the place. "There is a certain limited number born to be rich, Jack," said my new companion, "and I just don't happen to be among them; but I have one stool for myself, you see, and, now that I have unshipped my desk, another for a visitor, and so get on well enough." I related briefly the story of my intimacy with his brother; and we were soon on such terms as to be in a fair way of emptying a bottle of rum together. "You remind me of old times," said my new acquaintance. "I am weary of these illiterate, boisterous, longsided Americans, who talk only of politics and dollars. And yet there are first-rate men among them too. I met, some years since, with a Philadelphia printer, whom I cannot help regarding as one of the ablest, best-informed men I ever conversed with. But there is nothing like general knowledge among the average class; a mighty privilege of conceit, however."