'If you had had as much experience of alligators as I have,you wouldn't talk like that.You dredge an alligator once and he's CONVINCED.
It's the last you hear of HIM.He wouldn't come back for pie.
If there's one thing that an alligator is more down on than another,it's being dredged.Besides,they were not simply shoved out of the way;the most of the scoopful were scooped aboard;they emptied them into the hold;and when they had got a trip,they took them to Orleans to the Government works.'
'What for?'
'Why,to make soldier-shoes out of their hides.
All the Government shoes are made of alligator hide.
It makes the best shoes in the world.They last five years,and they won't absorb water.The alligator fishery is a Government monopoly.All the alligators are Government property--just like the live-oaks.You cut down a live-oak,and Government fines you fifty dollars;you kill an alligator,and up you go for misprision of treason--lucky duck if they don't hang you,too.And they will,if you're a Democrat.
The buzzard is the sacred bird of the South,and you can't touch him;the alligator is the sacred bird of the Government,and you've got to let him alone.'
'Do you ever get aground on the alligators now?'
'Oh,no!it hasn't happened for years.'
'Well,then,why do they still keep the alligator boats in service?'
'Just for police duty--nothing more.They merely go up and down now and then.The present generation of alligators know them as easy as a burglar knows a roundsman;when they see one coming,they break camp and go for the woods.'
After rounding-out and finishing-up and polishing-off the alligator business,he dropped easily and comfortably into the historical vein,and told of some tremendous feats of half-a-dozen old-time steamboats of his acquaintance,dwelling at special length upon a certain extraordinary performance of his chief favorite among this distinguished fleet--and then adding--'That boat was the "Cyclone,"--last trip she ever made--she sunk,that very trip--captain was Tom Ballou,the most immortal liar that ever I struck.He couldn't ever seem to tell the truth,in any kind of weather.
Why,he would make you fairly shudder.He WAS the most scandalous liar!
I left him,finally;I couldn't stand it.The proverb says,"like master,like man;"and if you stay with that kind of a man,you'll come under suspicion by and by,just as sure as you live.He paid first-class wages;but said I,What's wages when your reputation's in danger?So I let the wages go,and froze to my reputation.And I've never regretted it.
Reputation's worth everything,ain't it?That's the way I look at it.
He had more selfish organs than any seven men in the world--all packed in the stern-sheets of his skull,of course,where they belonged.
They weighed down the back of his head so that it made his nose tilt up in the air.People thought it was vanity,but it wasn't,it was malice.
If you only saw his foot,you'd take him to be nineteen feet high,but he wasn't;it was because his foot was out of drawing.
He was intended to be nineteen feet high,no doubt,if his foot was made first,but he didn't get there;he was only five feet ten.
That's what he was,and that's what he is.You take the lies out of him,and he'll shrink to the size of your hat;you take the malice out of him,and he'll disappear.That "Cyclone"was a rattler to go,and the sweetest thing to steer that ever walked the waters.Set her amidships,in a big river,and just let her go;it was all you had to do.
She would hold herself on a star all night,if you let her alone.
You couldn't ever feel her rudder.It wasn't any more labor to steer her than it is to count the Republican vote in a South Carolina election.
One morning,just at daybreak,the last trip she ever made,they took her rudder aboard to mend it;I didn't know anything about it;I backed her out from the wood-yard and went a-weaving down the river all serene.
When I had gone about twenty-three miles,and made four horribly crooked crossings----'
'Without any rudder?'
'Yes--old Capt.Tom appeared on the roof and began to find fault with me for running such a dark night--'
'Such a DARK NIGHT ?--Why,you said----'
'Never mind what I said,--'twas as dark as Egypt now,though pretty soon the moon began to rise,and----'
'You mean the SUN--because you started out just at break of----look here!
Was this BEFORE you quitted the captain on account of his lying,or----'
'It was before--oh,a long time before.And as I was saying,he----'
'But was this the trip she sunk,or was----'
'Oh,no!--months afterward.And so the old man,he----'
'Then she made TWO last trips,because you said----'
He stepped back from the wheel,swabbing away his perspiration,and said--'Here!'(calling me by name),'YOU take her and lie a while--you're handier at it than I am.Trying to play yourself for a stranger and an innocent!--why,I knew you before you had spoken seven words;and I made up my mind to find out what was your little game.
It was to DRAW ME OUT.Well,I let you,didn't I?
Now take the wheel and finish the watch;and next time play fair,and you won't have to work your passage.'
Thus ended the fictitious-name business.And not six hours out from St.Louis!but I had gained a privilege,any way,for I had been itching to get my hands on the wheel,from the beginning.
I seemed to have forgotten the river,but I hadn't forgotten how to steer a steamboat,nor how to enjoy it,either.