his chief favorite among this distinguished
fleet--and then adding--

'That boat was the "Cyclone,"--last trip she ever made--she sunk, that
very trip--captain was Tom Ballou, the most immortal liar that ever I
struck. He couldn't ever seem to tell the truth, in any kind of weather.
Why, he would make you fairly shudder. He WAS the most scandalous
liar! I left him, finally; I couldn't stand it. The proverb says, "like
master, like man;" and if you stay with that kind of a man, you'll come
under suspicion by and by, just as sure as you live. He paid first-class
wages; but said I, What's wages when your reputation's in danger? So I
let the wages go, and froze to my reputation. And I've never regretted
it. Reputation's worth everything, ain't it? That's the way I look at
it. He had more selfish organs than any seven men in the world--all
packed in the stern-sheets of his skull, of course, where they belonged.
They weighed down the back of his head so that it made his nose tilt up
in the air. People thought it was vanity, but it wasn't, it was malice.
If you only saw his foot, you'd take him to be nineteen feet high, but
he wasn't; it was because his foot was out of drawing. He was intended
to be nineteen feet high, no doubt, if his foot was made first, but he
didn't get there; he was only five feet ten. That's what he was, and
that's what he is. You take the lies out of him, and he'll shrink to the
size of your hat; you take the malice out of him, and he'll disappear.
That "Cyclone" was a rattler to go, and the sweetest thing to steer that
ever walked the waters. Set her amidships, in a big river, and just let
her go; it was all you had to do. She would hold herself on a star
all night, if you let her alone. You couldn't ever feel her rudder. It
wasn't any more labor to steer her than it is to count the Republican
vote in a South Carolina election. One morning, just at daybreak, the
last trip she ever made, they took her rudder aboard to mend it; I
didn't know anything about it; I backed her out from the wood-yard
and went a-weaving down the river all serene. When I had gone about
twenty-three miles, and made four horribly crooked crossings--'

'Without any rudder?'

'Yes--old Capt. Tom appeared on the roof and began to find fault with me
for running such a dark night--'

'Such a DARK NIGHT ?--Why, you said--'

'Never mind what I said,--'twas as dark as Egypt now, though pretty soon
the moon began to rise, and--'