“Throw it overboard!”
“Throw it overboard!” I yelled out, “it may have more in it, throw it overboard.”
No sooner said than done, and as the only evidence of my participation floated over the wave, no one was louder in his denunciation, no one wanted to be shown—in order that he might be lynched—the rascal that brought it on board, more than I did, except, perhaps, it was the sailor, who, now thoroughly humbled, stood shivering in his wet clothes by the furnace, ready to acknowledge that the “little, noisy flirt of an American snake, no larger than a marlin' spike,” was “some snakes” certain.
FRANK AND THE PROFESSOR.
It wanted but a few days of the commencement of the lectures. Having procured a boarding-house, and furnished myself with the necessary books and tickets, I was sauntering over the city, amusing myself with the many strange sights which pass unnoticed by the denizens, yet have such an attraction for the grave rat just emerged from the country, when I was hailed by a Southern acquaintance—a rattling, red-headed fellow, of Irish descent; the proof of which, the tip of his tongue always presented.
“How are you, Tensas—when did you arrive—slayed many the past summer? I brought them to their senses in my section, certain; for the grand jury found a true bill against me in thirteen cases for manslaughter. Let's take a drink. Ha! ha! I want to tell you of an occurrence that happened to old——. Bless his sugar-loaf head! if he'd only let me left when I first wanted, I'd always hereafter write his name without the first letter. You see, Ten, I had letters of introduction for the old chap; and I thought I'd deliver them early, and get on his good side before the winter's course of sprees commenced. I suppose you know, as he's a widower, and writing a book, and deeply in debt—to his Maker—that he lives up in the college, and cooks his own victuals, and has quite a retired life of it, as my uncle the postmaster remarked about his own situation, when the department gave him his walking-papers. Well, I went up to his room when everything was quiet about the college, thinking what a nice scientific disquisition we could have, if the old gentleman, knowing I was a hunter, was to ask me why the rings on a coon's tail didn't grow parallel to the axis of its long diameter, instead of the short; or, to which fowl did a young duck owe the most filial love—to the duck that laid the egg, or the hen that hatched it? And such like questions, worthy of being lucubrated upon by great minds only.
“I found the old gentleman very complacent and easy, standing up in his night-shirt and making whiskey-toddy in a teapot, whilst he gave the last touch to an introductory oration for the P. T. S.
“'Prof.————, I presume?' said I, knocking at the door after I had opened it—thinking, that as I had forgotten it at first, it would be an imputation on Southern manners to neglect it entirely.