We could have gone down to the mouth of the river and visited Captain Eads’ great work, the ‘jetties,’ where the river has been compressed between walls, and thus deepened to twenty-six feet; but it was voted useless to go, since at this stage of the water everything would be covered up and invisible.

We could have visited that ancient and singular burg, ‘Pilot-town,’ which stands on stilts in the water—­so they say; where nearly all communication is by skiff and canoe, even to the attending of weddings and funerals; and where the littlest boys and girls are as handy with the oar as unamphibious children are with the velocipede.

We could have done a number of other things; but on account of limited time, we went back home.  The sail up the breezy and sparkling river was a charming experience, and would have been satisfyingly sentimental and romantic but for the interruptions of the tug’s pet parrot, whose tireless comments upon the scenery and the guests were always this-worldly, and often profane.  He had also a superabundance of the discordant, ear-splitting, metallic laugh common to his breed—­a machine-made laugh, a Frankenstein laugh, with the soul left out of it.  He applied it to every sentimental remark, and to every pathetic song.  He cackled it out with hideous energy after ’Home again, home again from a foreign shore,’ and said he ’wouldn’t give a damn for a tug-load of such rot.’  Romance and sentiment cannot long survive this sort of discouragement; so the singing and talking presently ceased; which so delighted the parrot that he cursed himself hoarse for joy.

Then the male members of the party moved to the forecastle, to smoke and gossip.  There were several old steamboatmen along, and I learned from them a great deal of what had been happening to my former river friends during my long absence.  I learned that a pilot whom I used to steer for is become a spiritualist, and for more than fifteen years has been receiving a letter every week from a deceased relative, through a New York spiritualist medium named Manchester—­postage graduated by distance:  from the local post-office in Paradise to New York, five dollars; from New York to St. Louis, three cents.  I remember Mr. Manchester very well.  I called on him once, ten years ago, with a couple of friends, one of whom wished to inquire after a deceased uncle.  This uncle had lost his life in a peculiarly violent and unusual way, half a dozen years before:  a cyclone blew him some three miles and knocked a tree down with him which was four feet through at the butt and sixty-five feet high.  He did not survive this triumph.  At the seance just referred to, my friend questioned his late uncle, through Mr. Manchester, and the late uncle wrote down his replies, using Mr. Manchester’s hand and pencil for that purpose.  The following is a fair example of the questions asked, and also of the sloppy twaddle in the way of answers, furnished by Manchester under the pretense that it came from the specter.  If this man is not the paltriest fraud that lives, I owe him an apology—­