Page:The Amateur Emigrant-The Silverado Squatters.djvu/95

Rh "Who was that?" asked Alick. "The new second engineer on board the So-and-so," was the reply.

"Well, and who is he?" "Brown, to be sure."

For Brown had been one of the fortunate quartette aboard the Circassia. If that was the way of it in the States, Alick thought it was high time to follow Brown's example. He spent his last day, as he put it, "reviewing the yeomanry," and the next morning says he to his landlady, "Mrs. X., I'll not take porridge to-day, please; I'll take some eggs." "Why, have you found a job?" she asked, delighted. "Well, yes," returned the perfidious Alick; "I think I'll start to-day."

And so, well lined with eggs, start he did, but for America. I am afraid that landlady has seen the last of him. It was easy enough to get on board in the confusion that attends a vessel's departure; and in one of the dark corners of Steerage No. I, flat in a bunk and with an empty stomach, Alick made the voyage from the Broomielaw to Greenock. That night, the ship's yeoman pulled him out by the heels and had him before the mate. Two other stowaways had already been found and sent ashore;