I shall stick to it myself,
if we go to the bottom."
We did _not_ go to the bottom. It is the proud boast of the Cunard
Company that it has "never lost a passenger's life"; and the captain
would not consent to send the Etruria to Davy Jones's locker, merely
in order to give Charles a chance of sticking to his dispatch-box
under trying circumstances. On the contrary, we had a delightful
and uneventful passage; and we found our fellow-passengers most
agreeable people. Charles, as Mr. Peter Porter, being freed for
the moment from his terror of Colonel Clay, would have felt really
happy, I believe--had it not been for the dispatch-box. He made
friends from the first hour (quite after the fearless old fashion
of the days before Colonel Clay had begun to embitter life for him)
with a nice American doctor and his charming wife, on their way back
to Kentucky. Dr. Elihu Quackenboss--that was his characteristically
American name--had been studying medicine for a year in Vienna, and
was now returning to his native State with a brain close crammed
with all the latest bacteriological and antiseptic discoveries. His
wife, a pretty and piquant little American, with a tip-tilted nose
and the quaint sharpness of her countrywomen, amused Charles not a
little. The funny way in which she would make room for him by her
side on the bench on deck, and say, with a sweet smile, "You sit
right here, Mr.
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