jaw of
yours will need to be patched up by a dentist, man!"

"Your jaw does all the mischief; and you are at it again, with your
pedagogical----"

"Cut it short! What a word! A young man of high aims ought not to use
such a word; and anybody else ought to be hung for it!"

"Still at it!"

"I wish to say something about the run up the river," continued Owen,
who was very fond of criticising my language, and would even neglect
important business to do it.

"Say it, then."

"Where do we go?"

"Wherever you say."

"Merciful Hotandsplosh! Am I to study up the geography of this State,
so as to tell you where to go?" demanded my passenger.

"I will select a route, in consultation----"

"Oh dear!" gasped Owen, throwing himself at full length on a sofa, with
his legs hanging over one end of it, as though he were in utter
despair.

"I will talk with K-u-r-n-e-l, Colonel, S-h-e-p-a-r-d, Shepard, a-bout
the r-o-u-t-e, route."

"Good! Shove it off on the Colonel!" exclaimed Owen. "I know what you
say now; and I feel better."

"Perhaps you would like to know where it is possible for us to go," I
continued, taking Cornwood's paper from my pocket as Owen sprang to his
feet. "Here are some suggestions in regard to where we may go; it was
made up by our guide;" and I handed him the paper, which he opened to
the fold of the sheet, and turned it over and over.

"Merciful Grand Panjandrum!"

"Another friend of yours!"

"I got him out of an American book; and that accounts for it! Am I to
read all this? _Tempus fugit_. _Let it fugit_! I should have to be
buried in the blue sands of Florida if I read all this;" and he turned
it over several times more.

"You would have to be buried in thought for a short time if you read
it."

"Let me see, what did you call what's in this paper? Suggestions, was
it? If these are only suggestions, what must the real thing be! No, no,
Alick! Go where you please; but don't ask me to read that paper. Only
give us some shooting and fishing. Don't bother me with any more
suggestions."

"You sent for me, and I came."

"I know you did. You are a young lamb, Alick. Now go and put it to the
Colonel and Tiffany."

Presently Colonel Shepard's party came into the parlor. They had just
arrived at the house, for they had stopped to see some alligators, and
to buy Gulf beans and alligator's teeth, ornamented, for watch-charms
and other wear. Miss Margie had seen an alligator six feet long, and