eantime; just
as I finally told Captain Sproule that I expected to work on a passenger
boat the next summer, and was told by him that he had sold his boat to a
company, and was to be a passenger-boat captain himself the next summer;
and would sign me on if I wanted to stay with him--which I did.

[4] Irving's impersonation of Homer must have nodded when he named this
safe, sane and staunch worthy Hermanus Van Clattercop.--G.v.d.M.

3

I was getting pretty stocky now, and no longer feared anything I was
likely to meet. I was well-known to the general run of canallers, and
had very little fighting to do; once in a while a fellow would pick a
fight with me because of some spite, frequently because I refused to
drink with him, or because he was egged on to do it; and this year I was
licked by three toughs in Batavia. They left me senseless because I
would not say "enough." I was getting a good deal of reputation as a
wrestler. I liked wrestling better than fighting; and though a smallish
man always, like my fellow Iowan Farmer Burns, I have seldom found my
master at this game. It is much more a matter of sleight than strength.
A man must be cautious, wary, cool, his muscles always ready, as quick
as a flash to meet any strain; but the main source of my success seemed
to be my ability to use all the strength in every muscle of my body at
any given instant, so as to overpower a much stronger opponent by
pouring out on him so much power in a single burst of force that he was
carried away and crushed. I have thrown over my head and to a distance
of ten feet men seventy-five pounds heavier than I was. This is the only
thing I ever did so well that I never met any one who could beat me.

I was of a fair complexion, with blue eyes, and my upper lip and chin
were covered with a reddish fuzz over a very ruddy skin--a little like
David's of old, I guess. On the passenger boats I met a great many
people, and was joked a good deal about the girls, some of whom seemed
to take quite a shine to me, just as they do to any fair-haired,
reasonably clean-looking boy; especially if he has a little reputation;
but though I sometimes found myself looking at one of them with
considerable interest there was not enough time for as slow a boy as I
to begin, let alone to finish any courting operations on even as long a
voyage as that from Albany to Buffalo. I was really afraid of them all,
and they seemed to know it, and made a good deal of fun of