h passengers.

We got to Louisville, where the boat laid up and paid off her crew,
and I came on to Cincinnati.

HOME AGAIN.

"Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise;
We love the play-place of our early days."

"Well, now I'll go home to the folks," I said, "and see if they
will forgive me." I thought I would take home some presents, so
I bought about $400 worth of goods, including coffee, sugar, teas,
etc., and took the old steamer _Hibernia_, of Pittsburg, Captain
Clinefelter, master. You ought to have seen me when I stepped on
the wharfboat at Marietta, my birthplace, dressed to death, with
my gold watch and chain, and a fine trunk I had bought in New
Orleans for $40. I got my groceries off the wharfboat, and hired
a wagon, and I took it afoot, as in those days you could not get
a hack except at a livery stable.

My mother knew me at first sight. Father was working at the ship-
yard at Port Homer, on the other side of the Muskingum River, and
did not come home until night.

I stopped at home a year, and had a fight nearly every week. I
then came to Cincinnati again, where I met my brother Paul, who
was working at calking steamboats. He coaxed me to stay with him,
saying that he would teach me the trade. I consented, and soon
was able to earn $4 per day. We worked together a few years, and
made a good deal of money; but every Monday morning I went to work
broke. I became infatuated with the game of faro, and it kept me
a slave. So I concluded either to quit work or quit gambling. I
studied the matter over a long time. At last one day while we were
finishing a boat that we had calked, and were working on a float
aft of the wheel, I gave my tools a push with my foot, and they
all went into the river. My brother called out and asked me what
I was doing. I looked up, a little sheepish, and said it was the
last lick of work I would ever do. He was surprised to hear me
talk that way, and asked me what I intended to do. I told him I
intended to live off of fools and suckers. I also said, "I will
make money rain;" and I did come near doing as I said.

THE GAME OF RONDO.

After shoving my calking tools into the river, I went to keeping
a "Rondo" game for Daniel and Joseph Smith, up on Fifth Street,
at $18 per week. Hundreds of dollars changed hands every hour,
both day and night. At the end of six months I was taken in as a
partner, and at that time the receipts of the game were about