He is a man of about fifty, a most uninteresting companion, being overwhelmed with a sense of his own wealth and importance, and consequently supremely indifferent to all around him.

His hands are always in his pockets, and the chink of money seems to follow him wherever he goes.

Vain and conceited, a fool as well as an egotist, he struts about like a peacock showing its plumage, and to borrow the words of the physiognomist Gratiolet, "il se flaire, il se savoure, il se goute." Why he should have taken his passage on board a mere merchant vessel instead of enjoying the luxuries of a Transatlantic steamer, I am altogether at a loss to explain.
The wife is an insignificant, insipid woman, of about forty years of age.

She never reads, never talks, and I believe I am not wrong in saying, never thinks.

She seems to look without seeing, and listen without hearing, and her sole occupation consists in giving her orders to her companion, Miss Herbey, a young English girl of about twenty.
Miss Herbey is extremely pretty.