THE ALLIGATORS.
I went up on the Princess. My old friend Truman Holmes was the Captain of her. I was standing on the hurricane deck when we landed at the mouth of the Red River to take in some passengers. I saw the negroes carrying some long boxes built like chicken-coops. I asked Captain Holmes what was in the boxes. He said, "Alligators;" so I went down stairs and found the man that owned them. I took him up to the bar and had a drink; then I asked him what he was going to do with the alligators. He said he had a side-show, and he was going to play the fairs all over the entire Northern country, and he wanted them to draw custom. I told him I thought it an excellent idea, and said, "I have a ten-legged wolf in a cage that I will get on board at Vicksburg, and I will sell him cheap." This pleased him, and we took another drink. I insisted on paying for the drinks, but he would not consent, so we got to be good friends. After supper we got to playing whisky poker, as I told him I never gambled much, only once in a while, as planters would play a quarter antee. He insisted on changing it into a little draw; and as I had some very good cards in the bar, I was not hard to coax. We commenced at a quarter antee, and after we had been playing about an hour he insisted on raising it to $1. He flattered me more than I ever was flattered before, in telling me I was the luckiest man to draw he ever saw. The result was, before we reached Natchez, I had won all his money and his alligators. But he took it so much to heart about losing his pets, that I sold them back to him and took his note. It is now older than the daguerrotype man's; and when I hand in my checks, I will leave the notes with my dear old mother-in-law for collection.