"Yes, true enough; but you do not remain here?"
"No, my boy. New Orleans is my destination. I have some moneyed interests there—if I get there in time. If I don't,—well—the interests are quite as heavy but not of a financial nature."
"All this is a mystery to me, Ben, and I don't ask for your confidence," said Tommy, shrugging his shoulders; "but when is it necessary for you to be in New Orleans?"
"At ten o'clock on the morning of the second of next month; just eleven days from to-day," replied Ben.
"Why you have lots of time! I could go to Mexico by that time," said Tom encouragingly. "I don't care if I take a trip down the river with you, Ben. Which way are you going?"
Ben expressed himself pleased at the prospect of his little friend's company, and thought the river would be their best route.
"So it is, undoubtedly," said Tommy. "You can go from St. Louis to New Orleans for four dollars on deck. Have you four dollars?"
Ben confessed that he had not. That all his cash assets consisted of ten cents, the remnant of the twenty-five he had received from the dray-man in New Jersey City.
"What, you have the dime yet? How saving you are!" cried the other. "But a dime won't take you to New Orleans. Not by river. Say, you fellow, how'll a fellow get to New Orleans?"
This last query was propounded to a picturesque representative of the fraternity who was sunning himself on a neighboring cotton-bale.