A good breeze,
which had risen with the sea, carried us triumphantly
through the intricacies of the passage; and we had soon
brought up not far from the landing-stairs. I remember
to have remarked an ugly-horned reptile of a modern
warship in the usual moorings across the port, but my
mind was so profoundly plunged in melancholy that I
paid no heed.
Indeed, I had little time at my disposal. Messieurs
Sharpe and Fowler had left the night before in the
persuasion that I was a liar of the first magnitude;
the genial belief brought them aboard again with the
earliest opportunity, proffering help to one who had
proved how little he required it, and hospitality to so
respectable a character. I had business to mind, I had
some need both of assistance and diversion; I liked
Fowler--I don't know why; and in short, I let them do
with me as they desired. No creditor intervening, I
spent the first half of the day inquiring into the
conditions of the tea and silk market under the
auspices of Sharpe; lunched with him in a private
apartment at the Hawaiian Hotel--for Sharpe was a
teetotaler in public; and about four in the afternoon
was delivered into the hands of Fowler.
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