-naturally enough--last day in the
city--a few juleps too many, but that's all right. A square meal, a
night's rest, and you'll wake up in the morning with Baton Rouge and all
the sugar lands astern, the big cotton plantations on both sides of us,
you feeling at home with everybody, everybody at home with you."

"Many thanks," sneered Julian. "We'll go to our meals self-invited. Good
evening."

Hugh granted the pair a slight nod. As they went, Lucian, looking back
over Julian's shoulder with eyes bigger than ever, said: "We'll wake up
in the morning without the least change of feeling for this boat's
owners, their relatives, or their hirelings."

The relative and the hireling glanced sharply at each other. But then
Hugh said quietly: "A man can't quarrel with boys, Mr. Watson."

"No," mused the pilot aloud as he watched the pair go below, "but he can
wait. They'll soon be men."

"And this be all forgotten," said Hugh.

"Not by them!" rejoined Mr. Watson. "They'll remember it ef they have to
tattoo it--on their stomachs."

"I should have managed them better," said Hugh.

"Lord, boy, nobody's ever managed _them_ sence they was born." The
speaker sauntered back toward the pilot-house, coining rhetoric in his
mind to relieve his rage. "It's only the long-looked-for come at last,"
he thought, "and come _toe_ last." As he resumed the bench behind his
partner his wrath at length burst out:

"Well, of all the hell-fry I ever come across----!"

"And they 'llow to keep things fryin'," said his mate.

Which made Watson even more rhetorical. "Yes, it's their only salvation
from their rotten insignificance." He meditated. "And yet--hnn!" He was
about to say something much kindlier when suddenly he laughed down from
a side window upon the twins returned. "Well, I'll swear!"

"We heard, sir," said Julian with a lordly bow.

"And you," chimed Lucian, "shall hear later." Rather aimlessly they
turned and again disappeared, and after a moment or two the man at the
wheel asked, with playful softness, with his eyes on the roof below:

"D'you reckon yon other two will ever manage to offset the tricks o'
Hayle's twins?"

His partner rose and looked down. The old nurse and the third Hayle
brother stood side by side watching the beautiful low-lying plantations
unbrokenly swing by behind the embankments of the eastern shore. The
level fields of young sugar-cane reposed in a twilight haze, while the
rows of whitewashed slave cab