"Exactly so," laughed Mr. Blaine. "Let me see; after our first day's run on shore, by some mistake you neglected to come on board at night, with the others."
"That was the case exactly. The fact is, we were too drunk to go on board with the others."
"Such was our melancholy condition, sir," added Scott, shaking his head. "We were invited, in a restaurant, to drink 'finkel,' and not knowing what finkel was, we did drink; and it boozed us exceedingly."
"We are about everything, sir. We slept at a hotel, and when we went down to the wharf to go on board, we learned that the ship's company had gone to Trolldoldiddledy Falls. As we felt pretty well, we thought we would take a train, see a little of the inside of Sweden, and meet the ship's company at Squozzlebogchepping."
"I can't give you the latitude and longitude of the jaw-breaker, but it was at the junction of the two railways, where the party came down from the canal. We were sure we should find our fellows there, but the Swedish figures bothered us, and we made a mistake in the hour the train was due."
"But the Swedish figures are the same as ours," suggested the head steward.
"Are they? Well, I don't know what the matter was, except that we were five minutes too late for the train. That's what's the matter."
"How very unfortunate it was you lost that train!"
"It was, indeed; I couldn't have felt any worse if I had lost my great-grandmother, who died fifty years before I was born. These honest fellows felt bad, too."
"We took the next train to Gottenburg; but when we arrived, the ship had sailed for Copenhagen, which I was more anxious to see than any other place in Northern Europe."
"And for that reason you came on to Stockholm."
"No, sir; you are too fast, Mr. Blaine. Your consequent does not agree with the antecedent. There was no steamer for Copenhagen for a couple of days."
"There was a steamer within an hour after you reached Gottenburg in that train, and an hour before the sailing of the canal steamer; and Mr. Peaks went down in her," said Mr. Blaine.
"We knew of no steamer till Monday, and we were afraid, if we went in her, that we should be too late to join the ship in Copenhagen; and with heroic self-denial, we abandoned our fondly-cherished hope of seeing the capital of Denmark, and hastened on to Stockholm, so as to be sure and not miss the ship again. These honest fellows," said Scott, pointing to Sanford and his companions, "agreed with us that this was the only safe course to take."