He brooked not resistance.

I was wearing a full beard.

He said it would never do, carried me perforce below, and cut it as I have worn it ever since.

The day before we were to dock he took me aside and said: "Mee young friend"-- he had a brogue which thirty years in Algiers, where he had been consul, and a dozen in Paris as a gentleman of leisure, had not wholly spoiled--"Mee young friend, I observe that you are shy of strangers, but my wife and I have taken a shine to you and the 'Princess'," as he called Mrs.Watterson, "and if you will allow us, we can be of some sarvis to you when we get to town." Certainly there was no help for it.

I was too ill of the long crossing to oppose him.