"O well turned English ethics!" said Dr. Keif with a deep sigh, as he stood with folded hands, looking up to heaven. "Do you think, Mr. Baxter, that Germany too will have the good fortune to get vessels from the English dockyards in consideration of certain moneys well and truly paid, and on the strength of similar cosmopolitan principles?"
"Why not? Though for the present we do all we can to prevent the building altogether. That's the strong side of our diplomacy. But take my word for it, if you order the vessels, and pay for them, you shall have them, and they shall be burnt down to the water's edge on the very first occasion. You have a good stock of sailors on your Baltic and Eastern coasts, and with respect to you we had better keep a sharp look-out."
"Thanks for the compliment," replied the Doctor. "I'll report your words to the First Lord of our Admiralty, whenever that high functionary, as yet unborn, shall have come to years of discretion."
Dr. Keif said these words with a bitter smile, and stooping down to pick up a piece of biscuit which a small boy had dropped, he overturned a still smaller girl who was standing by his side, and with the cigar which he held in his hand he burnt the hand of a lady near him, to the intense disgust of that respectable female, who vented her feelings in a piercing, scream. The Doctor, frightened and confused, made a leap backwards, and alighted with wonderful precision on Mr. Baxter's left foot, the very foot in which it is suspected our aged friend has felt some slight twinges of gout, and, to add to the learned philosopher's discomfiture, a gust of wind blew his hat off his head, and lodged it safely on a large newspaper which a fat old gentleman was reading. The biscuit, meanwhile, had been eaten by an Italian greyhound; the small boy screamed, and the small girl screamed; the fat old gentleman expressed his indignation--some people are _so_ awkward! the lady rubbed her hand; and even Mr. Baxter's temper was slightly ruffled. "You see, gentlemen," said that amiable man, "the consequences of a mere mention of the German fleet on board an English vessel."
That inevitable personage who haunts all steamers--the man with the little book who takes the passage-money from those who are without tickets, has at length found us out. His appearance puts a stop to all acrimonious remarks.