with whose peculiarities of manner, speech and disposition most of us are to-day familiar enough.  He never spoke of his past, having doubtless good reasons for reticence, but any one learned in Western slang—­a knowledge then denied me—­would have catalogued him with infallible accuracy.  He was a rather large, strong fellow, swarthy, black-bearded, black-eyed, black-hearted and entertaining, no end; ignorant with an ignorance whose frankness redeemed it from offensiveness, vulgar with a vulgarity that expressed itself in such metaphors and similes as would have made its peace with the most implacable refinement.  He drank hard, gambled high, swore like a parrot, scoffed at everything, was openly and proudly a rascal, did not know the meaning of fear, borrowed money abundantly, and squandered it with royal disregard.  Desiring one day to go to Mobile, but reluctant to leave Montgomery and its pleasures—­unwilling to quit certainty for hope—­he persuaded the captain of a loaded steamboat to wait four days for him at an expense of $400 a day; and lest time should hang too heavy on the obliging skipper’s hands, Jack permitted him to share the orgies gratis.  But that is not my story.

One day Jack came to me with a rather more sinful proposal than he had heretofore done me the honor to submit.  He knew of about a thousand bales of cotton, some of it private property, some of it confiscable, stored at various points on the banks of the Alabama.  He had a steamboat in readiness, “with a gallant, gallant crew,” and he proposed to drop quietly down to the various landings by night, seize the cotton, load it on his boat and make off down the river.  What he wanted from me, and was willing to pay for, was only my official signature to some blank shipping permits; or if I would accompany the expedition and share its fortunes no papers would be necessary.  In declining this truly generous offer I felt that I owed it to Jack to give him a reason that he was capable of understanding, so I explained to him the arrangements at Mobile, which would prevent him from transferring his cargo to a ship and getting the necessary papers permitting her to sail.  He was astonished and, I think, pained by my simplicity.  Did I think him a fool?  He did not purpose—­not he—­to tranship at all:  the perfected plan was to dispense with all hampering formality by slipping through Mobile Bay in the black of the night and navigating his laden river craft across the Gulf to Havana!  The rascal was in dead earnest, and that natural timidity of disposition which compelled me to withhold my cooeperation greatly lowered me in his esteem, I fear.

It was in Cuba, by the way, that Jack came to grief some years later.  He was one of the crew of the filibustering vessel Virginius, and was captured and shot along with the others.  Something in his demeanor as he knelt in the line to receive the fatal fusillade prompted a priest to inquire his religion.  “I am an atheist, by God!” said Jack, and with this quiet profession of faith that gentle spirit winged its way to other tropics.