A certain deck on the ‘Paducah’, which took him as far as Cairo, was devoted to cattle —­black cattle.  Eliphalet possessed a fortunate temperament.  The deck was dark, and the smell of the wretches confined there was worse than it should have been.  And the incessant weeping of some of the women was annoying, inasmuch as it drowned many of the profane communications of the overseer who was showing Eliphalet the sights.  Then a fine-linened planter from down river had come in during the conversation, and paying no attention to the overseer’s salute cursed them all into silence, and left.

Eliphalet had ambition, which is not a wholly undesirable quality.  He began to wonder how it would feel to own a few of these valuable fellow-creatures.  He reached out and touched lightly a young mulatto woman who sat beside him with an infant in her arms.  The peculiar dumb expression on her face was lost on Eliphalet.  The overseer had laughed coarsely.

“What, skeered on ’em?” said he.  And seizing the girl by the cheek, gave it a cruel twinge that brought a cry out of her.

Eliphalet had reflected upon this incident after he had bid the overseer good-by at Cairo, and had seen that pitiful coffle piled aboard a steamer for New Orleans.  And the result of his reflections was, that some day he would like to own slaves.

A dome of smoke like a mushroom hung over the city, visible from far down the river, motionless in the summer air.  A long line of steamboats —­white, patient animals—­was tethered along the levee, and the Louisiana presently swung in her bow toward a gap in this line, where a mass of people was awaiting her arrival.  Some invisible force lifted Eliphalet’s eyes to the upper deck, where they rested, as if by appointment, on the trim figure of the young man in command of the Louisiana.  He was very young for the captain of a large New Orleans packet.  When his lips moved, something happened.  Once he raised his voice, and a negro stevedore rushed frantically aft, as if he had received the end of a lightning-bolt.  Admiration burst from the passengers, and one man cried out Captain Brent’s age—­it was thirty-two.

Eliphalet snapped his teeth together.  He was twenty-seven, and his ambition actually hurt him at such times.  After the boat was fast to the landing stage he remained watching the captain, who was speaking a few parting words to some passengers of fashion.  The body-servants were taking their luggage to the carriages.  Mr. Hopper envied the captain his free and vigorous speech, his ready jokes, and his hearty laugh.  All the rest he knew for his own—­in times to come.  The carriages, the trained servants, the obsequiousness of the humbler passengers.  For of such is the Republic.