the brush of local talent; when, with the tramp of feet and a sudden

buzz of voices, the swing-doors were flung broadly open and the place

carried as by storm. The crowd which thus entered (mostly seafaring

men, and all prodigiously excited) contained a sort of kernel or general

centre of interest, which the rest merely surrounded and advertised, as

children in the Old World surround and escort the Punch-and-Judy man;

the word went round the bar like wildfire that these were Captain

Trent and the survivors of the British brig Flying Scud, picked up by a

British war-ship on Midway Island, arrived that morning in San Francisco

Bay, and now fresh from making the necessary declarations. Presently I

had a good sight of them: four brown, seamanlike fellows, standing by

the counter, glass in hand, the centre of a score of questioners.

One was a Kanaka--the cook, I was informed; one carried a cage with a

canary, which occasionally trilled into thin song; one had his left arm

in a sling and looked gentlemanlike, and somewhat sickly, as though

the injury had been severe and he was scarce recovered; and the captain

himself--a red-faced, blue-eyed, thickset man of five and forty--wore

a bandage on his right hand. The incident struck me; I was struck

particularly to see captain, cook, and foremost hands walking the street

and visiting saloons in company; and, as when anything impressed me,

I got my sketch-book out, and began to steal a sketch of the four

castaways. The crowd, sympathising with my design, made a clear lane

across the room; and I was thus enabled, all unobserved myself, to

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