"All right, old fellow, I'm with you, but as soon as you get tired of looking around I wish you'd let me know. It seems to me that I've been gone a month already. You know why."
"Yes, I know; but you've got a consolation that I never had—you know what to expect when you get back."
"Yes, that's true, and may be you'll know what to expect one of these days."
From the museful distance the giant removed his gaze and upon the boy at his side he bent a kindly look. "I have been reading a good deal of late," he said, "and old Gid has told me that I am improving, but I have found no book to speak a word of comfort to me. I took the heartache away back yonder—but we won't talk about it. We'll poke around down here a day or two and then go home."
"But hang it, I thought you came to enjoy yourself and not to conjure up things to make you sad."
"You are right, and you shan't hear any more sad talk out of me."
It was early in the forenoon when they stepped ashore and stood upon the old levee. The splendid life of the Mississippi steamboat is fading, but here the glow lingers, the twilight at the close of a fervid day. No longer are seen the gilded names of famous competitors, "The Lee," "The Natchez," but unheralded boats are numerous, and the deck-hands' chorus comes with a swell over the water, and the wharf is a jungle of trade.
In the French market they drank black coffee, listening to the strange chatter about them, and then aimlessly they strolled away.
"What's your programme?" the boy asked.
"Haven't any."