At this moment Percy joined me, when we at once knocked at the door and stepped into the cabin. The individual to whom the Captain had been talking, a small, sharp-faced man in a check suit, rose as we entered, and taking no notice of us apparently, thanked the Captain for his information and went out.
“Well, boys,” said the Captain, “I sent for you to tell you that I have had a satisfactory report of both of you, and to give you this”—handing us ten dollars each; “I’m told you have earned it. Now let me give you something else—a piece of advice. Telegraph to your friends for the money and turn right round and go home again. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, sir; and thank you,” said Percy and I together, glad to be thus dismissed without the cross-questioning to which we had feared we might be subjected. Having then taken leave of our good friend the Purser, we straightway went ashore.
Pausing only for a few minutes to look down upon the city, and to wonder how the inhabitants ever dared to go to bed with that tremendous river only awaiting an opportunity, apparently, to rush in and drown them all before morning, we set off in search of a telegraph-office, whence we sent a brief message home, and having also mailed a long letter which Percy had written during the passage out, we retraced our steps to the river-side.
As we left the post-office we noticed the sharp-faced man whom we had seen in the Captain’s cabin. He was talking to a policeman, who, as we passed, turned his eyes in our direction and laughed at something the small man said. The sound of the laugh was a great relief to us. If we were the objects of it, well and good. The policeman might laugh at us as much as he liked, provided he did not interfere with us. To tell the truth, we had been somewhat apprehensive lest we might on landing be snapped up by the authorities and shipped off to England, willy-nilly.
Among the many steamboats of extraordinary shape—as they seemed to me—lying along the levee we soon found one about to start up the river, and stepping on board we addressed ourselves to one who appeared to be in authority—an authority he maintained, seemingly, by the use of a copious and needless flow of profane language.
“Well, what do you want?” asked this personage, turning upon us as though he had been a dog, and we had come to steal his bone.
We stated our desires and our qualifications, with the result that we both secured places as “roustabouts”; and thoroughly disgusted were we both with our tasks long before we reached St. Louis. It was not so much the nature of the work to which we objected, nor was it to the society of the negroes and poor-whites with whom we were herded; our main objection was to the stream of foul language for ever being poured upon us by “his profanic majesty,” as Percy called him, the Mate. It required all our resolution not to desert half-a-dozen times on the way up, but being determined to stick to our plan, if possible, we managed to hold on until, at last, the ordeal was over, and we found ourselves one day walking, free and untrammelled, in the streets of St. Louis.
The first thing we did on landing was to enter a cheap clothing store and purchase some underclothes—a much-needed addition to our wardrobe. As we were going out again we brushed past a man who was trying on a new necktie before a looking-glass, and happening to look into the glass, I saw, rather to my surprise, that it was the small, sharp-faced man whom we had twice seen in New Orleans. It struck me as being an odd coincidence, but nothing more, and I did not even mention it to Percy.
Betaking ourselves next to a little eating-house, we ordered some dinner, and while waiting for it Percy amused himself and me by reading items from the old newspaper in which our clothes were wrapped. Presently he gave a subdued whistle, and after glancing around the room to see if anyone was observing us, he leaned across the table and said, softly: