chief attention remained, as
steadily as his gaze, on his steering-mark far up in the bight of the
sunlit bend, at the same time including, here below, his seated
commander.

"Cap' ought to be pootty tol'able tired, Ned."

"Well, now, he jest ought!" The partner dropped back and perched on the
visitor's bench, whence he could still see the river though not the
closely intervening cabin--and texas roofs; and all the two said later
was without an exchange of glances. Watson thought the captain would
"rest more now, on watch, than what he did before, off," having got
matters running so much smoother down below; though the cholera was
"a-growin', straight along."

Ned told of his pleasure in seeing Hugh conduct the senator down to the
devotional services: "Lard, they hev done him brown, ain't they?--atween
'em, Hugh and Hayle's girl?"

"With some help," said Watson, modestly. "That petition--ef th's
anything else aboard this boat as dead as what it is"--he ran into
inelegancies.

Ned offered to bet it was not dead inside the senator, and Watson
admitted that the statesman would probably never forgive the "genteel"
way he had been euchred; though like euchre, he said, a lot of it was
luck.

"But, man! the bluff he _kin_ put up! Couldn't believe my eyes when we'd
passed the hat an' adjourned an' I see him a-standin' at the fork o' the
for'a'd stairs, ag'in the trunk room, same ole bell-wether as ever,
a-makin' a _bully_ speech to Madame Hayle an' that Marburg chap down in
the gangway, foot o' the steps, an' a-present'n' him our
'oblations'--says he--meanin' the swag!"

"An' her a-translat'n' for him!" said Ned, fancying the scene, with the
senator, under his mask, "a-gritt'n' his tushes!" and Watson, to
heighten it, told of Hugh and the actor at one head of the double stair,
and Mrs. Gilmore and Ramsey at the other--"a-chirpin' him on, an' the
whole b'iler deck, ladies and gents, takin' it in, solid!"

The senator was long-headed. "Yes, an' yit Hugh's throwed him fair jest
by main strength an' awk'ardness."

"I dunno!" said Ned. "It wuz long-headed, too, fo' Hugh an' the
play-acto's to give him the job."

"It wuz long-headed in her who put 'em up to it."

"Oh, look here! _She_ didn't do that, did she?"

"'Less'n I'm a liar," replied Watson, eyes front.

"Hunh! Wonder which! Say, Wats'; on the b'iler deck--did she have on
this gownd she's a-wearin' now?"

"No," said Watson, tardily, with eyes still up-strea