"Beg your pardon! hope I've not hurt you; but you were right in the gangway!" exclaims a light-haired, blue-coated specimen of humanity, as he enters the ball-room, and treads on the feet, and grinds the head of one of the guests against the door-post he fancies he is ornamenting; and then he rushes violently up to the lady of the house, and shakes her hand with a vehemence more cordial than "_comme-il-faut_;" and then, turning to the host, apologizes for being so late, declaring that he had carried away every stitch of canvas he could stagger under, and would have made the house half-an-hour before, but he'd had a capsize in a cab, and it took him some time to get under weigh again. Then he mixes in the crowd, and on closer inspection, you perceive by the bright buttons on his blue coat, which have a crown and anchor and some inscription upon them, that he belongs to one of the Royal Yacht Clubs; while the same bright buttons with the same crown and anchor, &c., only a size smaller, adorning his white waistcoat, tell you that he is not ashamed of it. From his conversation we are made acquainted with the important fact that there had been a match that day at Erith, and that his yacht must have won only his gaff-topsail was carried away in a squall; and we learn, moreover, that he fully sympathizes with Lord Freshwater, who would have come in a good second had not a Hatch Boat run right into his starboard-bow, and driven her bowsprit clean through his lordship's balloon-jib. And then he tells the listeners a remarkably funny story of a friend of his, who went for a cruise with him, and would persist in calling "going on deck" "going upstairs;" whereat the yachting man laughs immoderately, and takes care all the evening through to term "going downstairs," "going below." He does not dance much, but whenever he does stand up for a Quadrille he talks very loud to his partner, saying, "Aye, aye," to all her questions; and he rushes to the refreshment-room with her directly the dance is over, where he does not restrict himself to negus and ices, but attacks the port wine at once.