We would always make from twenty-five cents to five dollars a day while on duty, for we hardly ever went to wait on a person but what they would give us something in the shape of money. Gamblers generally gave us the most; sometimes a lot of them would get together in a room to play cards and send down to the bar after their drinks and may be send a ten or twenty dollar bill and tell the bell boy to keep the change. With this money we used to have some gay old times taking in the city after coming off guard.
The next fall, nearly one year after landing at the "Planters," I had a fight with one of the bell boys, Jimmie Byron. He called me a liar and I jumped aboard of him. When it was over with, the clerk, Mr. Cunningham, called me up to the counter and slapped me without saying a word.
I went right straight to my room, packed up my "gripsack" and went to the proprietor for a settlement.
He was surprised and wanted to know what in the world had gotten into me.
I told him the whole thing, just as it happened. He tried to get me to stay but I was still mad and wouldn't listen to him. I had made up my mind to buy a pistol, come back and get square with Mr. Cunningham for slapping me.
I left the house with eighteen dollars in my pocket; jumped aboard of a street car and rode down to the levee. I left my valise at a saloon and then started back to find a gun store. I finally found one and gave ten dollars for a fancy little ivory handled five-shooter.
I then started for the "Planters" still as mad as an old setting hen. I had not gone far when I came across a large crowd gathered around one of those knife rackets, where you pay a quarter for five rings and try to "ring" a knife.
I watched the thing awhile and finally invested a quarter. I got a little "Jim Crow" barlow the first throw. That made it interesting, so I bought another quarters worth, and another until five dollars was gone. This did not satisfy me, so I kept on until I didn't have a nickel left.
But wasn't I mad when I realized what I had done! I forgot all about my other troubles and felt like breaking my own head instead of Cunningham's.
I went to the levee and found out that the "Bart Able" would start for New Orleans in a few minutes, so I ran to get my satchel, not far off, determined on boarding the steamer and remaining there until kicked off. Anything to get nearer the land of my birth, I thought, even if I had to break the rules of a gentleman in doing so.