The Argosy — page 272: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MY CHANNEL PASSAGE. | By C. N. CARVALHO, O a good sailor the crossing from Calais to Dover is, in a general way, wholly devoid of incident or adventure. The occasion to _ which I refer, however, proved an exception to this rule, and though the experience was, in many ways, trying to me, I can well imagine that an account of it might be amusing to others. I was on the point of returning from one of the German baths _ where I had spent several weeks, when I received a letter from an old friend, now a widow, asking me to allow her son, a youth of _ seventeen, to travel home in my company. “T must not tell Charley,” she wrote, “ that I put him under your _ care; that would be derogatory to his dignity ; but I confess to you I shall be more comfortable if I know he is not travelling alone. _ He is so heedless he will never get into the right train, if someone | does not look after him. He won’t give you trouble in any other | way,” she added; “indeed, he may possibly be of use to you. He is a dear, good-natured fellow; you are sure to get on well together.” I had no objection to this arrangement. I would have done more | than that to oblige Sophy—cousin Sophy, as I used to call her in | my young days, though the relationship, if it existed, was a very | distant one—so I wrote to Charley and told him to meet me at -» Cologne on a certain day which I named. In due course the lad made his appearance. He was a good- g} MGoking young fellow, with bright, dark eyes and a winning smile, and q He evidently took life easily. If the world were not made fob _ | Charley, it set no obstacles in his way. I don’t know what he had | learnt at school, but, if the rest of his attainments were to be judged self to any direat extent. Charley never did, I found out later, exert ) himself if he could possibly avoid doing so. _ We “got on,” as his mother predicted, very comfortably. I have the talent, if I may call it one, of making boys or very young men /at ease in my company, and my efforts in this case were very suc- ha Charley and I were soon on the most confidential terms. if in Germany, his views on the choice of a profession, and his tastes and favourite occupations; which last appeared, as far as I could make out, to be smoking, riding in the park, visiting the theatres, and ; oo such lucrative pursuits. Our journey to Brussels was destitute of adventure, and the fol- COMIC OOO Ss (C(O) im