Captain Sam was a good specimen of the fraternity—­good-looking, good-natured, quick-witted, prompt, and faithful, as well as quick-tempered, profane, and perpetually thirsty.  To carry a full load, put his boat through in time, and always drink up to his peg, were his cardinal principles, and he faithfully lived up to them.

Of the fair sex he was a most devoted admirer, and if he had not possessed a great deal of modesty, for a steamboat captain, he could have named two or three score of young women who thought almost as much of him as the worthy boarding-house keeper did.

Good Mrs. Simmons had, to use her own language, “kerried him before the Lord, and wrastled for him;” but it was very evident, from Sam’s walk and conversation, that his case had not yet been adjudicated according to Mrs. Simmons’s liking.

He still had occasional difficulties with the hat-stand and stairway after coming home late at night; his breath, though generally odorous, seemed to grieve Mrs. Simmons’s olfactories, and his conversation, as heard through his open door in Summer, was thickly seasoned with expressions far more Scriptural than reverential.

One Christmas, the old lady presented to the captain a handsome Bible, with his name stamped in large gilt letters on the cover.  He was so delighted and so proud of his present, that he straightway wrapped it in many folds of paper to prevent its being soiled, and then stowed it neatly away in the Queen Ann’s safe, for secure keeping.

When he told Mrs. Simmons what he had done, she sighed deeply; but fully alive to the importance of the case, promised him a common one, not too good to read daily.

“Daily!  Bless you, Mrs. Simmons!  Why, I hardly have time to look in the paper, and see who’s gone up, and who’s gone down, and who’s been beat.”

“But your better part, cap’en?” pleaded the old lady.

“I—­I don’t know, my good woman—­hard to find it, I guess—­the hull lot averages purty low.”

“But, cap’en,” she continued, “don’t you feel your need of a change?”

“Not from the Queen Ann, ma’am—­she only needs bigger engines—­”

“Change of heart, I mean, cap’en,” interrupted Mrs. Simmons.  “Don’t you feel your need of religion?”

“Ha! ha!” roared Captain Sam; “the idea of a steamboat captain with religion!  Why, bless your dear, innocent, old soul, the fust time he wanted to wood up in a hurry, his religion would git, quicker’n lightnin’.  The only steamboatman I ever knowed in the meetin’-house line went up for seven year for settin’ fire to his own boat to git the insurance.”

Mrs. Simmons could not recall at the moment the remembrance of any pious captain, so she ceased laboring with Captain Sam.  But when he went out, she placed on his table a tract, entitled “The Furnace Seven Times Heated,” which tract the captain considerately handed to his engineer, supposing it to be a circular on intensified caloric.