Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/53

Rh me his name was Harry Drake, and that he was the son of a merchant at Calcutta, a gambler, a dissolute character, a duelist, and now that he was almost ruined, he was most likely going to America to try a life of adventures. "Such people," added the Doctor, "always find followers willing to flatter them, and this fellow has already formed his circle of scamps, of which he is the center. Among them I have noticed a little short man, with a round face, a turned-up nose, wearing gold spectacles, and having the appearance of a German Jew; he calls himself a doctor, on the way to Quebec; but I take him for a low actor and one of Drake's admirers."

At this moment Dean Pitferge, who easily skipped from one subject to another, nudged my elbow. I turned my head towards the saloon door; a young man about twenty-eight, and a girl of seventeen, were coming in arm in arm.

"A newly-married pair?" asked I.

"No," replied the Doctor, in a softened tone," an engaged couple, who are only waiting for their arrival in New York to get married; they have just made the tour of Europe, of course with their family's consent, and they know now that they are made for one another. Nice young people; it is a pleasure to look at them. I often see them leaning over the railings of the engine-rooms, counting the turns of the wheels, which do not go half fast enough for their liking. Ah! sir, if our boilers were heated like those two youthful hearts, see how our speed would increase!"

day, at half-past twelve, a steersman posted up on the grand saloon door the following observations: Lat. 51° 15' N., Long. 18° 13' W., Dist.: Fastenet, 323 miles.

This signifies that at noon we were three hundred and twenty-three miles from the Fastenet lighthouse, the last which we had passed on the Irish coast, and at 51° 15′ north latitude, and 18° 13' west longitude, from the meridian of Greenwich. It was the ship's bearing, which the captain thus made known to the passengers every day. By consulting this bearing, and referring it to a chart, the course of the