e geography. If the Mississippi is the Father of Waters, can
you tell me who is the mother of them?"

"The Miss'ouri."

"O, ah! Don't you feel faint, Captain Alick?" added Owen, stopping
short on the sidewalk, and gazing into my face with a look of mock
anxiety.

"Not at all; I think I could swallow a burly Briton or two, if the
occasion required."

"Don't do it! It would ruin your digestion. But it strikes me those two
rivers are but one."

"I think so, too, and they ought to be. Father and mother--man and
wife--ought to be one," I answered, as indifferently as I could. "But
something was not quite the thing; and if there is anything in this
country that is not quite the thing, I want to know what it is."

"When I chartered the Sylvania to come down here, and then go up the
'Father of Waters,' it isn't quite the thing for your father to declare
the whole thing off at this point of the cruise," replied Owen. "I was
going to have a jolly good time going up the river."

"You may have it yet, for I have given you a cordial invitation to go
'up the river' with me; and I mean every word I said about the matter,"
I added, in soothing tones.

"But your father says the charter arrangement is ended, and you may go
where you like in your steamer."

"And I concluded at once to carry out all the arrangements for this
trip, just as we made them at Detroit," I replied. "I have invited the
Shepards and the Tiffanys to join us, and everything will go on just as
it did before, except that you will not pay the bills."

"Which means that, if I join you at all, I shall not be myself,"
returned Owen, with a look of disgust. "In other words, I shall not be
my own master, and I must go where my uncle and you may choose to take
me."

"Not at all; we are going up the Mississippi simply because that is the
route you selected, and because I desire to carry out your plan of
travel to the letter," I replied, rather warmly. "I don't think I could
do anything more to meet your views than I have done."

"You are as noble, grand, magnanimous, as it is possible for any fellow
to be, Alick; but that don't make me any more willing to be under
obligations to you every day of my life."

"You need feel under no obligations to me."

"Ah, but I do, you see; and I still think it was not just the thing to
break away from the written agreement we made," continued Owen, unable
to conceal his vexation.

"I think you ought not to say another word