DURING the two or two and a half years of my apprenticeship,I served under many pilots, and had experience of manykinds of steamboatmen and many varieties of steamboats;for it was not always convenient for Mr. Bixby to have mewith him, and in such cases he sent me with somebody else.

I am to this day profiting somewhat by that experience;for in that brief, sharp schooling, I got personally and familiarlyacquainted with about all the different types of human naturethat are to be found in fiction, biography, or history.

The fact is daily borne in upon me, that the average shore-employmentrequires as much as forty years to equip a man with this sortof an education. When I say I am still profiting by this thing,I do not mean that it has constituted me a judge of men--no, it has not done that; for judges of men are born, not made.

My profit is various in kind and degree; but the feature of itwhich I value most is the zest which that early experience hasgiven to my later reading. When I find a well-drawn characterin fiction or biography, I generally take a warm personalinterest in him, for the reason that I have known him before--met him on the river.

The figure that comes before me oftenest, out of the shadows of thatvanished time, is that of Brown, of the steamer 'Pennsylvania'--the manreferred to in a former chapter, whose memory was so good and tiresome.

He was a middle-aged, long, slim, bony, smooth-shaven, horse-faced, ignorant,stingy, malicious, snarling, fault hunting, mote-magnifying tyrant.

I early got the habit of coming on watch with dread at my heart.

No matter how good a time I might have been having with the off-watch below,and no matter how high my spirits might be when I started aloft, my soulbecame lead in my body the moment I approached the pilot-house.

I still remember the first time I ever entered the presence of that man.

The boat had backed out from St. Louis and was 'straightening down;'

I ascended to the pilot-house in high feather, and very proudto be semi-officially a member of the executive family of so fastand famous a boat. Brown was at the wheel. I paused in the middleof the room, all fixed to make my bow, but Brown did not look around.

I thought he took a furtive glance at me out of the corner of his eye,but as not even this notice was repeated, I judged I had been mistaken.

By this time he was picking his way among some dangerous 'breaks' abreastthe woodyards; therefore it would not be proper to interrupt him; so Istepped softly to the high bench and took a seat.

There was silence for ten minutes; then my new boss turnedand inspected me deliberately and painstakingly from headto heel for about--as it seemed to me--a quarter of an hour.

After which he removed his countenance and I saw it no morefor some seconds; then it came around once more, and thisquestion greeted me--'Are you Horace Bigsby's cub?'

'Yes, sir.'

After this there was a pause and another inspection. Then--'What's your name?'

I told him. He repeated it after me. It was probably the onlything he ever forgot; for although I was with him many monthshe never addressed himself to me in any other way than 'Here!'

and then his command followed.

'Where was you born?'

'In Florida, Missouri.'

A pause. Then--'Dern sight better staid there!'

By means of a dozen or so of pretty direct questions, he pumpedmy family history out of me.

The leads were going now, in the first crossing. This interruptedthe inquest. When the leads had been laid in, he resumed--'How long you been on the river?'

I told him. After a pause--'Where'd you get them shoes?'

I gave him the information.

'Hold up your foot!'

I did so. He stepped back, examined the shoe minutely and contemptuously,scratching his head thoughtfully, tilting his high sugar-loaf hat well forwardto facilitate the operation, then ejaculated, 'Well, I'll be dod derned!'

and returned to his wheel.

What occasion there was to be dod derned about it is a thingwhich is still as much of a mystery to me now as it was then.

It must have been all of fifteen minutes--fifteen minutesof dull, homesick silence--before that long horse-faceswung round upon me again--and then, what a change!

It was as red as fire, and every muscle in it was working.

Now came this shriek--'Here!--You going to set there all day?'

I lit in the middle of the floor, shot there by the electricsuddenness of the surprise. As soon as I could get my voice I said,apologetically:--'I have had no orders, sir.'

'You've had no ORDERS! My, what a fine bird we are! We must have ORDERS!

Our father was a GENTLEMAN--owned slaves--and we've been to SCHOOL.

Yes, WE are a gentleman, TOO, and got to have ORDERS! ORDERS, is it?

ORDERS is what you want! Dod dern my skin, I'LL learn you to swell yourselfup and blow around here about your dod-derned ORDERS! G'way from the wheel!

(I had approached it without knowing it.)I moved back a step or two, and stood as in a dream, all my sensesstupefied by this frantic assault.

'What you standing there for? Take that ice-pitcher down tothe texas-tender-come, move along, and don't you be all day about it!'

The moment I got back to the pilot-house, Brown said--'Her............