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 it which I value most is the zest which that early experience has given to my later reading.  When I find a well-drawn character in fiction or biography, I generally take a warm personal interest 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 that vanished time, is that of Brown, of the steamer ’Pennsylvania’—­the man referred 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 soul became 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 proud to be semi-officially a member of the executive family of so fast and famous a boat.  Brown was at the wheel.  I paused in the middle of 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’ abreast the woodyards; therefore it would not be proper to interrupt him; so I stepped softly to the high bench and took a seat.

There was silence for ten minutes; then my new boss turned and inspected me deliberately and painstakingly from head to heel for about—­as it seemed to me—­a quarter of an hour.  After which he removed his countenance and I saw it no more for some seconds; then it came around once more, and this question 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 only thing he ever forgot; for although I was with him many months he 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 pumped my family history out of me.

The leads were going now, in the first crossing.  This interrupted the inquest.  When the leads had been laid in, he resumed—­