 Chapter 6 of the Amateur Immigrant On the Sunday, among a party of men who were talking in our companion, steerage number two and three, we remarked a new figure. He wore tweed clothes, well enough made if not very fresh, and a plain smoking cap. His face was pale, with pale eyes and spiritually enough designed, but though not yet thirty, a sort of back-guardly degeneration had already overtaken his features. The fine fat nose had grown fleshy towards the point. The pale eyes were sunken fat. His hands were strong and elegant, his experience of life evidently varied, his speech full of pith and verve, his manners forward, but perfectly presentable. The lad who helped in the second cabin told me, in answer to a question, that he did not know who he was, but thought by his way of speaking, and because he was so polite, that he was someone from the saloon. I was not so sure, for to me there was something equivocal in his air and his bearing. He might have been, I thought, the son of some good family who had fallen early into dissipation and run from home. But making every allowance how admirable was his talk. I wish you could have heard him tell his own stories. They were so swingingly said forth in such dramatic language and illustrated here and there by such luminous bits of acting that they could only lose in any reproduction. There were tales of the P&O Company, where he had been an officer, of the East Indies, where in former years he had lived lavishly, of the Royal Engineers, where he had served for a period, and of a dozen other sides of life, each introducing some vigorous thumbnail portrait. He had the talk to himself that night, we were all so glad to listen. The best talkers usually addressed themselves to some particular society. There they are kings, elsewhere camp followers, as a man may know Russian and yet be ignorant of Spanish. But this fellow had a frank headlong power of style and a broad human choice of subject that would have turned any circle in the world into a circle of hearers. He was a Homeric talker, plain, strong and cheerful, and the things and the people of which he spoke became readily and clearly present to the minds of those who heard him. This, with a certain added colouring of rhetoric and rhodo-montade, must have been the style of Burns, who equally charmed the ears of duchesses and hostlers. Yet freely and personally as he spoke, many points remained obscure in his narration. The engineers, for instance, was a service which he praised highly. It is true there would be trouble with the sergeants, but then the officers were gentlemen, and his own in particular, one among ten thousand. It sounded so far exactly like an episode in the rakish topsy-turvy life as such a one as I had imagined. But then came incidents more doubtful, which showed an almost impudent greed after gratuities and a truly impudent disregard for truth. And then there was the tale of his departure. He had wearyed, it seems, of Woolwich, and one fine day with a companion slipped up to London for a spree. I have a suspicion that spree was meant to be a long one, but God disposes all things, and one morning near Westminster Bridge, whom should he come across but the very sergeant who had recruited him at first? What followed? He himself indicated cavaliery that he had resigned. Let us put it so. But these resignations are sometimes very trying. At length, after having delighted us for hours, he took himself away from the companion, and I could ask Makai who or what he was. That, said Makai, why that's one of the stowaways. No man said the same authority who has anything to do with the sea would ever think of paying for a passage. I give the statement as Makai's without endorsement, yet I am tempted to believe that it contains a grain of truth. And if you add that the man shall be impudent and thievish or else dead broke, it may even pass for a fair representation of the facts. We gentlemen of England who live at home at ease have, I suspect, very insufficient ideas on the subject. All the world over, people are stowing away coal holes in dark corners, and when ships are once out to sea, appearing again begrimed and bashful upon the deck. The career of these sea tramps protects largely of the adventurers. They may be poisoned by coal gas, or die of starvation in their place of concealment. Or when found they may be clapped at once and ignominiously into irons, thus to be carried to their promised land, the port of destination, and the last bought back in the same way to that from which they started, and there delivered over to the magistrates and the seclusion of a county jail. Since I crossed Atlantic, one miserable stowaway was found in a dying state amongst the fuel, uttered but a word or two and departed for a farther country than America. When the stowaway appears on deck, he hath but one thing to pray for, that he be set to work, which is the price and sign of his forgiveness. After half an hour with a swab or bucket, he feels himself as secure as if he had paid for his passage. It is not altogether a bad thing for the company, who get more or less efficient hands for nothing but a few plates of junk and dove, and every now and again find themselves better paid than by a whole family of cabin passengers. Not long ago, for instance, the bucket was saved from nearly certain loss by the skill and courage of a stowaway engineer. As was no more than just, a handsome subscription rewarded him for his success. But even without such exceptional good fortune, as things stand in England and America, the stowaway will often make a good profit out of his adventure. Four engineers stowed away last summer on the same ship, the Caucasia, and before two days after their arrival, each of the four had found a comfortable berth. This was the most hopeful tale of emigration that I heard from first to last. And as you see, the luck was for stowaways. My curiosity was much inflamed by what I heard. And the next morning, as I was making the round of the ship, I was delighted to find the ex-royal engineer engaged in washing down the white paint of a deckhouse. There was another fellow at work beside him, a lad not more than twenty, in the most miraculous tatters, his handsome face sewn with grains of beauty and lighted up by expressive eyes. Poor stowaways had been found aboard our ship before she left the clad, but these two had alone escaped the ignominy of being put ashore. My acquaintance of last night was scotched by berth and by trade a practical engineer. The other was from Devonshire who had been to sea before the monist. Two people more and alike by training character and habits that would be hard to imagine, yet here they were together scrubbing paint. Alec had held all sorts of good situations and wasted many opportunities in life. I have heard him end a story with these words that was in my golden days when I used finger grasses. Situation after situation failed him, then followed the depression of trade and for months he had hung around with other idlers playing marbles all day in the West Park and going home at night to tell his landlady how he had been seeking for a job. I believe this kind of existence was not unpleasant to Alec himself, and he might have long continued to enjoy arduousness and a life on tick, but he had a comrade, let us call him Brown, who grew restive. This fellow was continually threatening to slip his cable for the States and at last one Wednesday Glasgow was left wizard of her Brown. Some months afterwards Alec met another old chap in Sauchichal Street. By the by Alec, said he, I met a gentleman in New York who was asking for you. Who was that asked Alec? The new second engineer on board the so-and-so was the reply. Well, and who was he? Brown to be sure. For Brown had been one of the fortunate quartets to board the Caucasia. If that was the way it was in the States Alec thought it was high time to follow Brown's example. He spent his last day as he put it, reviewing the Yeomanry, and next morning, said he to his landlady, this is eggs, I'll not take porridge today, I'll take some eggs. Why, have you found a job? She asked delighted. Why yes, returned the perfidious Alec, I think I'll start today. And so, well lined with eggs, start he did, but for America. I'm 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 number one, flat in a bunker with an empty stomach, Alec made the voyage from Bromelor to Greenock. That night the ship's Yeoman pulled him out by the hills and had him before the mate. Two other stowaways had already been found and sent ashore, but by this time, darkness had fallen, they were out in the middle of the estuary, and the last steamer had left him till morning. Take him to the folksal and give him a meal, said the mate, and see and pack him off the first thing tomorrow. In the folksal he had supper, a good night's rest and breakfast, and was sitting placidly with a pipe, fencing all was over and game up for a good with the ship, when one of the sailors grumbled out and I had him with her, what are you doing there, do you call that hiding anyway? There was no need of more. Alec was in another bunk before the day was older. Shortly before the passengers arrived, the ship was cursillary inspected. He heard the round come down the companion and look into the one pen after another till they came within two of the one in which he lay concealed. Into these last two they did not enter, but merely ganced from without. And Alec had no doubt that he was personally favoured in this escape. It was the character of a man to attribute nothing to luck and but little to kindness. Whatever happened to him he had earned in his own right, amply. Favours came to him from his singular attraction and adroitness, and misfortunes he had always accepted with his eyes open. Half an hour after the searches had departed, the steerage began to fill with legitimate passengers, and the worst of Alec's troubles were at an end. He was soon making him a self-popular, smoking other people's tobacco and politely sharing their private stock delicacies, and when night came he retired to his bunk beside the others with composure. Next day by afternoon, low foil being already far behind and only the rough northwestern hills of Ireland within view, Alec appeared on deck to court inquiry and decide his fate. As a matter of fact he was known to several on board and even intimate with one of the engineers, but it was plainly not the etiquette of such occasions for the authorities to avail their information. Everyone professed surprise and anger on his appearance and he was led prison before the captain. What have you to say for yourself, you inquired the captain. Not much, said Alec, but when a man has been a long time out of a job he will do things he would not under other circumstances. Are you willing to work? Alec swore he was burning to be useful. And what can you do? asked the captain. He replied compulsorily that he was a brass-fitter by train. I think you will be better at engineering, suggested the officer with the shrewd look. No, sir, said Alec simply. There's few that can beat me at a lie, was his engaging commentary to me, as he recounted the affair. Have you been to sea? again asked the captain. I've had a trip on a Clyde steamboat, sir, but no more replied the unabashed Alec. Well, we must try and find some work for you, concluded the officer. And here we behold Alec, clear of the hot engine room, lazily scraping paint, and now and then taking a pull upon a sheet. You leave me alone, was his deduction, when I get talking to a man I can get round him. The other stowaway, whom I will call the Devonian, it was noticeable that neither of them told his name, had been brought up and seen the world in a much smaller way. His father, a confectioner, died and was closely followed by his mothers. His sisters had taken, I think, to dressmaking. He himself had returned from sea about a year ago and gone to live with his brother, who kept the George Hotel. It was not quite a real hotel, added the candid fellow, and had a hired man to mine the horses. At first the Devonian was very welcome, but his time went on, his brother not unnaturally grew cool toward him, and he began to find himself one too many at the George Hotel. I don't think brothers care much for you, he said, as a general reflection upon life. Hurt at this change, nearly penniless and too proud to ask for more, he set up on foot and walked 80 miles to Waymouth, living on the journey as he could. He would have enlisted, but he was too small for the army and too old for the Navy, and thought himself fortunate to have a birth on board a trading dandy. Somewhere in the Bristol Channel, the dandy sprung a leak and went down, and though the crew were picked up and bought ashore by fishermen, they found themselves with nothing but the clothes upon their back. His next engagement was scarcely better starred, for the ship proved so leaky and frightened them all so heartily during a solid passage through the Irish Sea, that the entire crew deserted upon the keys of Belfast. Evil days were now coming thick on the Devonian. He could find no birth in Belfast and had to work a passage to Glasgow on a steamer. She reached the Bruma Law on a Wednesday. The Devonian had a belly full that morning, laying in breakfast manfully to provide against the future, and set off along the keys to seek employment. But he was now not only penniless, his clothes had begun to fall in tatters. He had begun to have the look of a street Arab, and captains will have nothing to say to a ragamuffin, for in that trade, as in all others, it is the coat that depicts the man. You may hand, reef and steer like an angel, but if you have a hole in your trousers, it is like a millstone round your neck. The Devonian lost heart at so many refusals. He had not the impudence to beg, although, as he said, when I had money of my own, I always gave it. It was only on Saturday morning, after three whole days of starvation, that he asked the scon from a milkman, who added of her own accord a glass of milk. He had now made up his mind to stow away, not from any desire to see America, merely to obtain the comfort of a place in the folksal and a supply of familiar seafair. He lived by begging, almost from milk women, and always scones and milk, and was not once refused. It was far wet weather, and he could never have been dry. By night he walked the streets, and by day slept upon Glasgow Green, and heard, in the intervals of his dozing, the famous theologians of the spot clear up intricate points of doctrine and appraise the merits of the clergy. He had not much instruction, he could read bills on the street, but was main bad at writing. Yet these theologians seemed to have impressed him with a genuine sense of amusement. Why, he did not go to the sailors' house, I know not. I presume there is, in Glasgow, one of these institutions, which are by far the happiest and the wisest effort of contemporaneous charity. But I must stand to my author, as they say in the old books, and relate the story as I heard it. In the meantime he had tried four times to stow away in different vessels, and four times had been discovered and handed back to starvation. The fifth time was lucky, and he may judge if he were pleased to be aboard ship again, at his old work, and with duff twice a week. He was, said Alec, a devil for the duff, or if devil was not the word, it was one if anything stronger. The difference in conduct of the two was remarkable. The Devonian was as willing as any paid hand, swarmed aloft among the first, pulled his natural weight and firmly upon a rope, and found work for himself when there was none to show him. Alec, on the other hand, was not only a skelker in the brain, but to the humorous and fine gentlemanly view of the transaction. He would speak to me by the hour in ostentatious idleness, and only if the boson or a mate came by fell too languidly for just the necessary time to lie out of sight. I'm not breaking my heart with it, he remarked. Once there was a hatch to be opened near where he was stationed. He watched the preparations for a second or two suspiciously, and then, hello, said he, there's some real work coming, I'm off, and he was gone that moment. Again, calculating the six-guinea passage money and the probable duration of the passage, he remarked pleasantly that he was getting six shillings a day for this job, and it's pretty dear to the company at that. They're making nothing by me was another of his observations. They're making something by that fellow, and he pointed to the Devonian, who was just then busy to the eyes. The more you saw of Alec, the more it must be owned, his natural talents were of no use either to him or to others, for his character had degenerated like his face and become pulpy and pretentious. Even his power of persuasion, which was certainly very surprising, stood in some danger of being lost or neutralized by overconfidence. He lied in an aggressive brazen manner, like a pert criminal in the dock, and he was so vain of his own cleverness that he could not refrain from boasting ten minutes after of the very trick by which he had deceived him. Why now I have more money than when I came aboard, he said one night, exhibiting a six-month, and yet I stood myself a bottle of beer before I went to bed yesterday, and as for tobacco, I have fifteen sticks of it. That was fairly successful indeed, yet a man of his superiority and with a less obtrusive policy, my who knows, have got the length of half a crown. A man who prides himself upon persuasion should learn the persuasive faculty of silence, above all as to his own misdeeds. It is only in the farce and for dramatic purposes that Scapen enlarges on his peculiar talents to the world at large. Scapen is perhaps a good name for this clever unfortunate alley, for at the bottom of all his misconduct there was a guiding sense of humour that moved you to forgive him. It was more than half a jest that he conducted his existence. O man said he to me once with unusual emotion, like a man thinking of his mischief, I would give up anything for a lark. It was in relation to his fellow stowaway that Alec showed the best, or perhaps I should say, the only good points of his nature. Mind you, he said suddenly changing his tone. Mind you, that's a good boy. He wouldn't tell you a lie. A lot of them think he's a scab because his clothes are ragged, but he isn't, he's as good as gold. To hear him, you became aware that Alec himself had a taste for virtue. He thought his own idleness and the other's industry equally becoming. He was no more anxious to ensure his own reputation as a liar than to uphold the truthfulness of his companion. And he seemed unaware of what was incongruous in his attitude, and was plainly sincere in both characters. It was not surprising that he should take an interest in the Devonian, for the lad worshipped him and served him in love and wonder. Busy as he was, he would find time to warn Alec of an approaching officer, or even to tell him that the coast was clear and he might slip off and smoke a pipe in safety. Tom, he once said to him, for that was the name which Alec ordered him to use. If you don't like going to the galley, I'll go for you. You'll get used to this kind of thing, you ain't, but I'm a sailor, and I can understand the feelings of any fellow I can. Again, he was hard up and casting about for some tobacco, for he's not so liberally used in this respect as the other preps less worthy, when Alec offered him the half of one of his 15 sticks. I think, for my part, that he might have increased the offer to a whole one, or perhaps a pair of them have not lived to regret his liberality. But the Devonian refused, no, he said, you're a star away like me, I won't take it from you, I'll take it from someone who's not down on his luck. It was notable in this generous lad that he was strongly under the influence of sex. If a woman passed near where he was working, his eyes lit up, his hand paused, and his mind wandered instantly to other thoughts. It was natural that he should exercise a fascination proportionately strong over women. He begged you'll remember from women only, and was never refused, without wishing to explain the way the charity of those who helped him. I cannot but fancy he may have owned a little to his handsome face, and to that quick responsive nature formed for love, which speaks eloquently through all disguises, and can stamp an impression in ten minutes' talk or in exchange of glances. He was the most dangerous in that he was far from bold, but seemed to woo in spite of himself, and with a soft and pleading eye. Ragged as he was, and many a scarecrow is in that respect more comfortably furnished, and on board he was not without some curious admirers. There was a girl among the passengers, a tall, blond, handsome, strapping Irish woman, with a wild, accommodating eye, who merely could dumb Tommy, with that transcendental appropriateness that defies analysis. One day the Devonian was lying for warmth on the upper stoke-hole, which stands open on the deck. When Irish Tommy came past, very neatly attired as was her custom. Paul fell out, she said, stopping. You haven't a vest. No, he said, I wish I had. Then she stood and gazed on him in silence, till, in his embarrassment, for he knew not how to look under the scrutiny, he pulled out his pipe and began to fill it with tobacco. Do you want a match? She asked, and before he had time to reply, she ran off and presently returned with more than one. This was the beginning and the end as far as our passage is concerned, and what I will make bold to call this love affair. There are many relations which go on to marriage and last during a lifetime, in which less human feeling is engaged than in this scene of five minutes at the stoke-hole. Rigidly speaking, this would end the chapter of the stowaways, but in a larger sense of the world I have yet more to add. Jones had discovered and pointed out to me a young woman who was remarkable amongst her fellows for a pleasing and interesting air. She was poorly clad to the verge, if not over the line, of disrespectability, with a ragged old jacket and a bit of a seal-skin cap no bigger than your fist. But her eyes, her whole expression and her manner, even in ordinary moments, told of a true womanly nature, capable of love, anger and devotion. She had a look too of refinement, like one who might have been a better lady than most had she been allowed the opportunity. When alone, she seemed preoccupied and sad, but she was not often alone. There was usually by her side a heavy, dull, gross man in rough clothes, cherry of speech and gesture, not from caution, but poverty of disposition. A man like a ditcher, unlovely and uninteresting, whom she petted and tendered and waited on with her eyes, as if he had been a martyrs of Gaul. It was strange to see this hulking fellow dog-sick and this delicate, sad woman caring for him. He seemed from first to last insensible of her caresses and attentions, and she seemed unconscious of his insensibility. The Irish husband, who sang his wife to sleep, and this Scottish girl serving her orson, were the two bits of human nature that most appealed to me throughout the voyage. On the Thursday before we arrived, the tickets were collected, and soon a rumour began to go around the vessel, and this girl with her bit of seal-skin cap became the centre of whispering and pointed fingers. She also, it was said, was a stowaway of a sort, for she was on board with neither ticket nor money, and the man with whom she travelled was the father of her family, who had left wife and children to be hers. The ship's officers discouraged the story, which may therefore have been a story and no more, but it was believed in the steerage, and the poor girl had to encounter many curious eyes from that day forth. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of The Amateur Immigrant This Librevox recording is in the public domain. The Amateur Immigrant by Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 7 Personal Experience and Review Travellers of two kinds, and this voyage of mine across the ocean, combined both. Out of my country and myself I go, sings the old poet, and I was not only travelling out of my country in latitude and longitude, but out of myself in diet, associates and consideration. Part of the interest and a great deal of the amusement flowed at least to me from this novel situation in the world. I found that I had what they call fallen in life with absolute success and very similitude. I was taken for a steerage passenger. No one seemed surprised that I should be so, and there was nothing but the brass plate between decks to remind me that I had once been a gentleman. In a former book describing a former journey I expressed some wonder that I could be readily and naturally taken for a peddler and explain the accident by the difference of language and manners between England and France. I must now take a humble view. For here I was amongst my own countrymen, somewhat roughly clad to be sure, but with every advantage of speech and manner, and I am bound to confess that I pass for nearly anything you please except an educated gentleman. The sailors called me mate. The officers have just me as my man. My comrades accepted me without hesitation for a person of their own character and experience, but with some curious information. One, a mason himself, believed I was a mason. Several, and among these at least one of the seamen, judged me to be a petty officer in the American Navy, and I was so often sit down for a practical engineer that at last I had not the heart to deny it. From all these guesses I drew one conclusion, which told against the insight of my companions. They might be close observers in their own way and read the manners in the hand, but it was plain they did not extend their observation to the hands. To the saloon passengers also I sustained my part without a hitch. It is true I came very little in their way, but when we did encounter there was no recognition in their eye, although I confess I sometimes courted it in silence. All these, my inferior and equals, took me, like the transformed monarch in the story, for a mere common human man. They gave me a hard, dead look, with a flesh about the eye kept unrelaxed. With the women this surprised me less, as I had already experimented on the sex by going aboard through a suburban part of London, simply attired in a sleeve waistcoat. The result was curious. I then learned for the first time, and by the exhaustive process, how much attention ladies are accustomed to bestow on all male creatures of their own station. For in my humble rig, each one who went by me caused me a certain shock of surprise and a sense of something wanting. In my normal circumstances, it appeared every young lady must have paid me some tribute of a glance, and though I had often not detected it when it was given, I was well aware of its absence when it was withheld. My height seemed to decrease with every woman who passed me, for she passed me like a dog. This is one of my grounds for supposing that what I call the upper classes may sometimes produce a disagreeable impression in what I call the lower, and I wish someone would continue my experiment and find out at exactly what stage of toilette a man becomes invisible to the well-regulated female eye. Here on shipboard the matter was put to a more complete test, for even with the addition of speech and manner, I passed among ladies for precisely the average man of the steerage. It was one afternoon that I saw this demonstrated. A very plainly dressed woman was taken ill on deck. I think I had the luck to be present at every sudden seizure during all the passage. I on this occasion found myself in a place of importance supporting the sufferer. There was not only a large crowd immediately around us, but a considerable knot of saloon passengers leaning over our heads from the hurricane deck. One of these, an elderly managing woman, hailed me with counsels. Of course I had to reply, and as the talk went on, I began to discover that the whole group took me for the husband. I looked upon my new wife poor creature with mingle feelings, and I must own she had not even the appearance of the poorest class of city servant-maids, but looked more like a country wench who should have been employed at roadside inn. Now was the time for me to go and study the brass plate. To such as officers of new about me, the doctor, the purser, and the stewards, I appeared in the light of a broad joke. The fact that I spent the better part of my day in writing had gone abroad over the ship and tickled them all prodigiously. Whenever they met me, they referred to my absurd occupation with familiarity and breadth of humorous intention. Their manner was well calculated to remind me of my fallen fortunes. You may be sincerely amused by the amateur literary efforts of a gentleman, but you scarce published the feeling to his face. Well, they would say, still writing, and the smile would widen into a laugh. The purser came one day into the cabin and touched to the heart by my misguided industry, offered me some other kind of writing, for which he added pointedly, you will be paid. This was nothing else than to copy out the list of passengers. Another trick of mine which told against my reputation was my choice of roosting place in an active draught upon the cabin floor. I was openly jeered and flouted for this eccentricity, and a considerable knot would sometimes gather at the door to see my last dispositions for the night. This was embarrassing, but I learnt to support the trial with equanimity. Indeed, I may say that upon the whole my new position sat lightly and naturally upon my spirits. I accepted the consequences with readiness and found them far from difficult to bear. The steerage conquered me. I conformed more and more to the type of the place, not only in manner but at heart, growing hostile to the officers and cabin passengers who looked down upon me, and day by day greedier for small delicacies. Such was the result, as I fancy, of a diet of bread and butter, soup and porridge. We think we have no sweet truth as long as we are full to the brim of the lasses, but a man must have so joined in the workhouse before he boasts himself indifferent to dainties. Every evening, for instance, I was more and more preoccupied about our doubtful fare at tea. If it was delicate, my heart was much lightened. If it was but broken fish, I was proportionately downcast. The offer of a little jelly from a fellow passenger more provident than myself caused a marked elevation in my spirits, and I would have gone to the ship's end and back again for an oyster or a chipped fruit. In other ways, I was content with my position. It seemed no disgrace to be confounded with my company, for I may as well declare I found them as gentle and becoming as those of any other class. I do not mean that my friends could have set down without embarrassment and laughable disaster at the table of a duke. That does not imply an inferiority of breeding, but a difference of usage. Thus I flatter myself that I conducted myself well among my fellow passengers. Yet my most ambitious hope is not to have avoided faults, but to have committed as few as possible. I know too well that my tact is not the same as their tact, and that my habit of a different society constituted not only no qualification, but a positive disability to move easily and becomingly in this. When Jones complimented me, because I managed to behave very pleasantly to my fellow passengers was how we put it, I could follow the thought in his mind, and knew his compliment to be such as we pay foreigners on their proficiency in English. I dare say this praise was given to me immediately on the back of some unpardonable solicism, which had led him to review my conduct as a whole. We are all ready to laugh at the ploughmen among lords. We should consider also the case of a lord amongst ploughmen. I have seen a lawyer in the house of a hebridean fisherman, and I know that nothing will induce me to disclose which of these two was the better gentleman. Some of our finest behaviour, though it looks well enough from the boxes, may seem even brutal to the gallery. We boast too often of manners that are parochial rather than universal, that, like a country wine, will not bear transportation for a hundred miles, nor from the parlour to the kitchen. To be a gentleman is to be one all the world over, and in every relation and grade of society. It is a high calling to which a man must first be born and then devote himself for life. And, unhappily, the manners of a certain so-called upper grade have a kind of currency and meet with a certain external acceptation through all the others, and this tends to keep us well satisfied with slight requirements and the amateurish accomplishments of a clique. But manners, like art, should be human and central. Some of my fellow passengers, as I now moved among them in a relation of equality, seem to me excellent gentlemen. They were not rough, nor hasty, nor disputatious, debated pleasantly, differed kindly, were helpful, gentle, patient and pleasant. The type of manners was plain and even heavy. There was little to please the eye, but nothing to shock. And I thought gentleness lay more nearly at the spring of behaviour than in many more ornate and delicate societies. I say delicate, but I cannot say refined. I think maybe fine like ironwork without being delicate like lace. There was here less delicacy. The skin supported more callously the natural surface of events. The mind received more bravely the crude facts of human existence. But I do not think there was less effective refinement, less consideration for others, less polite suppression of self. I speak of the best among my fellow passengers, for in the steerage as well as in the saloon, there is a mixture. Those then with whom I found myself in sympathy and with whom I may therefore hope to write with a greater measure of truth were not only as good in their manners, but endowed with very much the same natural capacities and about as wise in deduction as the bankers and barristers of what is called society. One and all were too much interested in disconnected facts and learned information for its own sake with too rash a devotion. But people in all classes display the same appetite as they gorge themselves daily with the miscellaneous gossip of the newspaper. Newspaper reading, as far as I can make out, is often rather a sort of brown study than an act of culture. I have myself palmed off yesterday's issue on a friend and seen him re-peruse it for a continuance of minutes with an air at once refreshed and solemn. Workmen perhaps pay more attention, but though they may be eager listeners they have rarely seemed to me either willing or careful thinkers. Culture is not measured by the greatness of the field which is covered by our knowledge, but by the nicety with which we can perceive relations in that field, whether great or small. Workmen, certainly those who are on board with me, I found wanting in this quantity or habit of the mind. They did not perceive relations, but leapt to a so-called cause and thought the problem settles. That's the cause of everything in England was the form of government and the cure for all evils was, by consequence, a revolution. It is surprising how many of them said this and that none should have the definite thought in his head as he said it. Some hated the church because they disagreed with it. Some hated Lord Beaconsfield because of war and taxes. All hated the masters, possibly with reason. But these failings were not at the root of the matter. The true reasoning of their souls rang thus. I have not got on. I ought to have got on. If there was a revolution, I should get on. How? I had no idea. Why? Because we'll look at America. To be politically blind is no distinction. We are also, if you come to that. At bottom, as it seems to me, there is but one question in modern home politics. Though it appears in many shapes and that is the question of money and but one political remedy that the people should grow wiser and better. My workman fellow passengers were as impatient and dull of hearing on the second of these points as any member of parliament. But they had some glimmerings of the first. They were not here of improvement on their part but wished the world made over again in a crack so that they might remain improvisant and idle and debauched and yet enjoy the comforts and respect that should accompany the opposite virtues. And it was in this expectation as far as I could see that many of them were now on their way to America. But on the point of money they saw clearly enough that inland politics so far as they were concerned were reducible to the question of annual income. A question which should long ago have been settled by a revolution. They did not know how and which they were now about to settle for themselves. Once more they knew not how by crossing the Atlantic in a steamship of considerable tonnage. And yet it has been amply shown them that the second or income question is itself nothing and may as well be left undecided if there be no wisdom and virtue to profit by the change. It is not by a man's purse but by his character that he is rich or poor. Barney will be poor, Alec will be poor, Mackay will be poor, let them go where they will and wreck all the governments under heaven. They will be poor till they die. Nothing is perhaps more notable in the average workman than his surprising idleness and the candor to which he confesses to the failing. It has to me been always something of relief to find the poor as a general rule so little oppressed with work. I can in consequence enjoy my own more fortunate beginning with a better grace. The other day I was living with a farmer in America an old frontiersman who had worked and fought, hunted and farmed from his childhood up. He excused himself for his defective education on the grounds that he had been overworked from first to last. Even now he said anxious as he was he had never the time to take up a book. In consequence of this I observed him closely. He was occupied for four or at the extreme outside for five hours out of twenty-four and then principally and walking the remainder of the day he passed in born idleness either eating fruit or standing with his back against the door. I have known men do hard literary work all morning and then undergo quite as much physical fatigue by way of relief has satisfied this power from frontiersmen for the day. He at least like all the educated class did so much homage to industry as to persuade himself he was industrious but the average mechanic recognises his arduousness for the frontiers he is even, as I am told, organised it. I give the story as it was told to me and it was told to me for effect. A man fell from a house top in the city of Aberdeen and was bought into hospital with broken bones. He was asked what was his trade and he replied that he was a tapper. No one had ever heard of such a thing before and the houses were filled with curiosity. They be sought an explanation. It appeared that when a party of slaters were engaged upon a roof they would now and then be taken with a fancy for the public house. Now seamstress, for example, might step away from her work and no one would be the wiser. But if these fellows adjourned the tapping of the mallets would cease and thus the neighbourhood would be advertised as their defection. Hence the career of the tapper. He has to do the tapping and keep up an industrious bustle on the house top during the absence of the slaters. When he taps for only one or two the thing is child's play. But when he has to represent a whole troop it is then that he earns his money in the sweat of his brow. Then must he bound from spot to spot read duplicate, triplicate, sex duplicate his single personality and swell and hasten his blows till he produces a perfect illusion for the ear and he would swear that a crowd of emulous masons were continuing merrily to roof the house. It must be a strange sight from an upper window. I heard nothing on board of the tapper but I was astonished at the stories told by my companions. Skulking, shirking, malingering were all established tactics that appeared. They could see no dishonesty when a man who has paid for an hour's work gives half an hour's constant idling in its place. Thus the tapper would refuse to watch for the police during a burgery and call himself an honest man. He is not sufficiently recognised that our race detests to work. If I thought that I should have to work every day as my life as hard as I am working now I should be tempted to give up the struggle. And the workman early begins on his career of toil. He has never had his fill of holidays in the past and his prospect of holidays in the future is both distant and uncertain. In the circumstances it would require a high degree of virtue not to snatch alleviations for the moment. There were many good talkers on the ship and I believe good talking of a certain sort is a common accomplishment among working men. Where books are comparatively square a great amount of information will be given and received by word of mouth and this tends to produce good talkers and what is no less needful for conversation, good listeners. They could all tell a story with effect. I am sometimes tempted to think that the less literary class shows always better in narration. They have so much more patience with detail are so much less hurried to reach the points and preserve so much faster a proportion amongst the facts. At the same time their talk is dry. They pursue a topic ploddingly, have not an agile fancy do not throw sunlights from unexpected quarters and when the talk is over they often leave the matter where it was. They mark time instead of marching. They think only to argue not to reach new conclusions and use their reason rather as a weapon of offence than as a tool for self-improvement. Hence the talk of some of the cleverest was unprofitable in result because there was no give and take. They would grant you as little as possible for premise and begin to dispute under an oath to conquer or die. But the talk of a workman is apt to be more interesting than that of a wealthy merchant because the thoughts, hopes and fears of which the workman's life is built lie nearer to necessity and nature. They are more immediate to human life. An income calculated by the week is a far more human thing than one calculated by the year and a small income simply from a smallness than a large one. I never wearied listening to the details of a workman's economy because every item stood for some real pleasure. If you could afford pudding twice a week you know that twice a week the man ate with genuine gusto and was physically happy. While if you learn that a rich man has seven courses a day ten to one half of them remain untasted and the holders but misspent money and a weariness to the pleasure. The difference between England and America to a working man was thus more humanly put to me by a fellow passenger. In America, said he, you get pies and puddings. I do not hear enough in economy books of pies and puddings. A man lives in and for the delicacies, adornments and accidental attributes of life such as pudding to eat and pleasant books and theatres to occupy his leisure. The bare terms of existence would be rejected with contempt by all. If a man feeds on bread and butter, soup and porridge his appetite grows wolfish after-date. And the workman dwells in a borderland and is almost within sight of those cheerless regions where life is more difficult to sustain than worth sustaining. Every detail of our existence whether it is worthwhile to cross the ocean after pie and pudding is made alive and enthralling by the presence of genuine desire but it is all one to me whether Croce has 100 or 100,000 in the bank. There's more adventure in the life of a working man who descends as a common soldier into the battle of life than in that of a millionaire who sits apart in an office like von Moltke and only directs the maneuvers by telegraph. Give me to hear about the career of him who is in the thick of business to whom one change of market means empty belly and another a copious and savory meal. This is not the philosophical but the human side of economics. It interests like a story and the life of all who are thus situated partakes in a small way the charm of Robinson Crusoe for every step is critical and human life is presented to you naked and verging to its lowest terms. End of chapter 7 Chapter 8 of the Amateur Amigrant This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Amateur Amigrant by Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 8 As we drew near to New York I was at first amused and then somewhat staggered by the cautious and the grizzly tales that went the round. You would have thought we were to land upon a cannibal island. You must speak to no one in the streets as they would not leave you till you were walked and beaten. You must enter a hotel with military precautions for the least you had to apprehend was to awake next morning without money or baggage or necessary raiment, a lone forked radish in a bed and if the worst befell you would instantly and mysteriously disappear from the ranks of mankind. I have usually found such stories correspond to the least modicum effect. Thus I was warned I remember against the roadside ends of the Savines and that by a learned professor and when I reached Pardells the warning was explained. It was but the far away rumour and re-duplication of a single terrifying story already half a century old and half forgotten in the theatre of the events. So I was tempted to make light of those reports against America. But we had on board with us a man whose evidence it would not do to put aside. He had come near these perils in the body. He had visited a robber inn. The public has an old and well-grounded favour for this kind of incident and shall be gratified to the best of my power. My fellow passenger whom we shall call Mahorten had come from New York to Boston with a comrade seeking work. They were a pair of rattling blades and leaving their baggage at the station past the day in beer saloons and with congenial spirits until midnight struck. Then they applied themselves to find a lodging and walked the streets till two, knocking at houses of entertainment and being refused admittance or themselves declining the terms. By two the inspiration of their liquor had began to wear off. They were weary and humble after a great circuit found themselves in the same street where they had begun their search and in front of a French hotel where they had already sought accommodation. Seeing the house still open they returned to the charge. A man in a white cap sat in an office by the door. He seemed to welcome them more warmly than when they had first presented themselves and the charge for the night had somewhat unaccountably fallen from a dollar to a quarter. They thought he were looking but paid their quarter a piece and were shown upstairs to the top of the house. There in a small room the man in the white cap wished him pleasant sombers. It was furnished with a bed, a chair and some conveniences. The door did not lock on the inside and the only sign of adornment was a couple of framed pictures one close above the head of the bed and the other opposite the foot. And both curtained as we may sometimes see valuable water covers or the portraits of the dead or works of art more than usually skittish in the subject. It was perhaps in the hope of finding something of this last description that Mahorten's comrade pulled aside the curtain of the first. He was startlingly disappointed. There was no picture. The frame surrounded and the curtain was designed to hide an oblong aperture in the petition through which they looked forth into the dark corridor. A person standing without could easily take a purse from under the pillow or even strangle a sleeper as he lay a bed. Mahorten and his comrade stared at each other like Vasco's seamen with a wild some eyes and then the latter catching up the lamp ran to the other frame and roughly raised the curtain. There he stood petrified and Mahorten who had followed grasped him by the wrist in terror. They could see into another room larger in size than that which they occupied where three persons sat crouching and silent in the dark. For a second or two these five persons looked each other in the eyes. Then the curtain was dropped and Mahorten and his friend made but one bolt of it out of the room and downstairs. The man in the white cap said nothing as they passed him and they were so pleased to be once more in the open night that they gave up all notion of a bed and walked the streets of Boston till the morning. No one seemed much cast down by these stories but all inquired after the address of a respectable hotel. And I, for my part, put myself under the conduct of Mr. Jones. Before noon of the second Sunday we sighted the low shores outside of New York Harbour. The steerage passengers must remain on board to pass through the castle garden on the following morning. But we of the second cabin made our escape along with the lords of the saloon. And by six o'clock Jones and I issued into West Street sitting on some straw in the bottom of an open baggage wagon. It rained miraculously and from that moment till on the following night I left New York there was scarce a lull and no cessation of the downpour. The roadways were flooded. A loud, strighted noise of falling water filled the air. The restaurants smelled heavily of wet people and wet clothings. It cost us but a few minutes, though it cost us a great deal of money to be rattled along West Side to our destination. Reunion House number 10 West Street. One minute walk from Castle Gardens. Convenient to Castle Garden, the steamboat landings, California steamers and Liverpool ships. Board and lodging per day, $1, single meals 25 cents. Lodging per night 25 cents. Private rooms for families. No charge for storage or luggage. Satisfaction guaranteed to all persons. Michael Mitchell, Pupiata. Reunion House was, I may go to the length of saying, a humble hostelry. You entered through a long bar room, thence passed into a little dining room and thence into a still smaller kitchen. The furniture was of the plainest, but the bar was hung in the American taste with encouraging and hospitable mottos. Jones was well known. We were received warmly and two minutes afterward I had refused a drink from the Pupiata and was going on in my plain European fashion to refuse a cigar when Mr. Mitchell sternly interposed and explained the situation. He was offering to treat me, it appeared. Whenever an American barkeeper proposes anything it must be borne in mind that he is offering to treat and if I did not want a drink I must at least take the cigar. I took it bashfully, feeling I had begun my American career on the wrong foot. I did not enjoy that cigar. This may have been from a variety of reasons. Even the best cigar often failing to please if you smoke three quarters of it in a drenching rain. For many years America was to me a sort of promised land. Westward the march of empire holds its way. The race is for the moment to the young. What has been and what is we imperfectly and obscurely know. What is to be yet lies beyond the flight of our imagination. Greece, Rome and Judea are gone by forever leaving to generations the legacy of their accomplished work. China still endures an old inhabited house in the brand new city of nations. England has already declined since she has lost the states until these states therefore yet undeveloped full of dark possibilities and grown like another eve from one rib out of the side of their own old land the minds of young men in England turn naturally at a certain hopeful period of their age. It will be hard for an American to understand the spirit. But let him imagine a young man who shall have grown up in an old and rigid circle following bygone fashions and taught to distrust his own fresh instincts and who now suddenly hears of a family of cousins all about his own age who keep house together by themselves and live far from restraint and tradition. Let him imagine this and he will have some imperfect notion of the sentiment with which spirited English use turned to thought of the American Republic. It seems to them as if out west the war of life was still conducted in the open air and on free barbaric terms as if it had not yet been narrowed into parlours nor begun to be conducted like some unjust and dreary arbitration by compromise, costume forms of procedure and sad, senseless self-denial. Which of these two he prefers a man with any youth still living him will decided rightly for himself. He would rather be houseless than deny the past key rather go without food than partake of stalled ox in stiff respectable society rather be shot out of hand and reflect his life according to the dictates of the world. He knows or thinks nothing of the main laws the Puritan soundness the fierce sordid appetite for dollars or the dreary existence of country towns. A few wild story books which delighted his childhood form the imaginative basis of his picture of America. In course of time there is added to this stimulating details vast cities that grow up ice by enchantment the birds that have gone south in autumn returning with the spring to find thousands camped upon their marshes and the lamps burning far and near along popular streets forests that disappear like snow countries larger than Britain that are cleared and settled one man running forth with his household goods before another while the bear and the Indian are yet scarce aware of their approach oil that gushes from the earth gold that is washed or quarried in the books or glens of the sears and all that bustle courage action and constraint and constant kaleidoscopic change that Walt Whitman has seized and set forth in his vigorous cheerful and laquacious verses. Here I was at last in America and was soon out upon New York streets spying for things foreign the place had to me an air of Liverpool but such was the rain that not paradise itself would have looked inviting we were a party of four under two umbrellas Jones and I and two Scots lads recent immigrants and not in disposed to welcome a compatriot there had been six weeks in New York and neither of them had yet found a single job or earned a single halfpony up to the present they are exactly out of pocket by the amount of the fare the lads soon left us now I had sworn by all my gods to have such a dinner as would rouse the dead there was scarce any expense at which I should have hesitated the devil was in it but Jones and I should die unlike heathen emperors I set to work asking after a restaurant and I chose the wealthiest and most gastronomical looking sparses by to ask from yet although I had told them I was willing to pay anything in reason one and all sent me off to cheap fixed price houses where I would not have eaten that night for the cost of twenty dinners I do not know if this were characteristic of New York or whether it was only Jones and I who looked undinally and discouraged enterprising suggestions but at length by our own suggestivity we found a French restaurant where there was a French waiter, some fair French cooking some so-called French wine and French coffee to conclude the whole I never entered into the feelings of jack-on-land so completely as when I tasted that coffee I suppose we had one of the private rooms for families at Reunion House it was very small furnished with a bed, a chair and some clothes-peaks and it derived all that was necessary for the life of the human animal through two bio-lights one looking into the passage and the second opening without sash into another apartment where three men fitfully snored or in intervals of wakefulness drearily mumbled to each other all night long it will be observed that this was almost exactly the disposition of the room in Mahorton's story Jones had the bed, I pitched my camp upon the floor he did not sleep till near morning and I for my part never closed an eye at sunrise I heard a cannon fired and shortly afterwards the men in the next room gave over snoring for good and began to rustle over their toilets the sound of their voices as they talked was low unlike that of people watching by the sick Jones who at last began to doze, tumbled and murmured and every now and then opened unconscious eyes upon me where I lay I found myself growing eerie and eerie for I daresay I was a little fevered by my rest this night and hurried to dress and get downstairs you had to pass through the rain which still fell thick and resonant to reach a lavatory on the other side of the court there were three basin stands and a few crumpled tails and pieces of wet soap white and slippery like fish nor shall I forget a looking-glass and a pair of questionable combs another Scots lad was here scrubbing his face with a good will he had been three months in New York and had not yet found a single job or earned a single half for me up to the present he was also exactly out of pocket by the amount of the fare I began to grow sick at heart for my fellow immigrants off my nightmare wanderings in New York I spare to tell I had a thousand and one things to do only the day to do them in and a journey across the continent before me in the evening it rained with patient fury every now and then I had to get under cover for a while in order so to speak to give my Macintosh a rest for under this continued drenching I began to grow damp on the inside I went to banks, post offices, railway offices, restaurants publishers, booksellers, money changers and wherever I went pool would gather about my feet and those who were careful of their flaws would look on with an unfriendly eye wherever I went to the same trace struck me the people were surprisingly rude and surprisingly kind the money changers cross-questioned me like a French commissary asking my age, my business, my average income and my destination beating down my attempts at evasion and receiving my answers in silence and yet when all was over he shook hands with me up to the elbows and sent his lad nearly a quarter of a mile in the rain to get me books as a reduction again in a very large publishing and book-selling establishment a man who seemed to be the manager received me as I had certainly never been before received in any human shop he indicated squarely that he put no faith in my honesty and refused to look up the names of books or give me the slightest help or information on the ground like the steward that it was none of his business I lost my temper at last said I was a stranger in America and not learned in their etiquette but I would assure him if he went to any bookseller in England of a more handsome usage the boast was perhaps exaggerated but like many a long shot it struck the gold the manager passed at once from one extreme to the other I may say that from that moment he loaded me with kindness he gave me all sorts of good advice wrote me down addresses and came bare-headed into the rain to point me out a restaurant where I might lunch nor even then did he seem to think he had done enough these are, it is as well to be bold in statement the manners of America it is the same opposition that has most struck me in people of almost all classes and from east to west by the time a man had about strung me up to be the death of him by his insulting behaviour he himself would be just upon the point of melting into confidence and serviceable attentions yet I suspect although I have met with the like in so many parts that this must be the character of some particular state or group of states for in America and this again in all classes you will find some of the softest mannered gentlemen in the world I was so wet when I got back to Mitchell's toward the evening that I had simply to divest myself of my shoes, socks and trousers and leave them behind for the benefit of New York City no fire could have dried the may I had to start and to pack them in their present condition was to spread ruin amongst my other possessions with a heavy heart I said farewell to them as they lay in a pulp in the middle of a pool upon the floor of Mitchell's kitchen I wonder if they are dry by now Mitchell hired a man to carry my baggage to the station which was hard by accompanied me there himself and recommended me to the particular attention of the officials no one could have been kinder those who are out of pocket may go safely to reunion house where they will get decent meals and find an honest and obliging land door I owed him this word of thanks before I enter fairly on the second and far less agreeable chapter of my immigrant experience End of Chapter 8 End of The Amateur Amigrant by Robert Louis Stevenson