, »the young man has this night beheld
a refinement of social manner, and an easy magnificence of social decoration, to
which he is a stranger in his own country. Let us hope it may awake a moral
sense within him.«
    If that peculiarly transatlantic article, a moral sense, - for if native
statesmen, orators, and pamphleteers, are to be believed, America quite
monopolises the commodity, - if that peculiarly transatlantic article be
supposed to include a benevolent love of all mankind, certainly Martin's would
have borne, just then, a deal of waking. As he strode along the street, with
Mark at his heels, his immoral sense was in active operation; prompting him to
the utterance of some rather sanguinary remarks, which it was well for his own
credit that nobody overheard. He had so far cooled down however, that he had
begun to laugh at the recollection of these incidents, when he heard another
step behind him, and turning round encountered his friend Bevan, quite out of
breath.
    He drew his arm through Martin's, and entreating him to walk slowly, was
silent for some minutes. At length he said:
    »I hope you exonerate me in another sense?«
    »How do you mean?« asked Martin.
    »I hope you acquit me of intending or foreseeing the termination of our
visit. But I scarcely need ask you that.«
    »Scarcely indeed,« said Martin. »I am the more beholden to you for your
kindness, when I find what kind of stuff the good citizens here are made of.«
    »I reckon,« his friend returned, »that they are made of pretty much the same
stuff as other folks, if they would but own it, and not set up on false
pretences.«
    »In good faith, that's true,« said Martin.
    »I dare say,« resumed his friend, »you might have such a scene as that in an
English comedy, and not detect any gross improbability or anomaly in the matter
of it?«
    »Yes indeed!«
    »Doubtless it is more ridiculous here than anywhere else,« said his
companion; »but our professions are to blame for that. So far as I myself am
concerned, I may add that I was perfectly aware from the first that you came
over in the steerage, for I had seen the list of passengers, and knew it did not
comprise your name.«
    »I feel more obliged to you than before,« said Martin.
    »Norris is a very good fellow in his
