wish you'd let me know. It seems to me that I've been
gone a month already. You know why."

"Yes, I know; but you've got a consolation that I never had--you know
what to expect when you get back."

"Yes, that's true, and may be you'll know what to expect one of these
days."

From the museful distance the giant removed his gaze and upon the boy at
his side he bent a kindly look. "I have been reading a good deal of
late," he said, "and old Gid has told me that I am improving, but I have
found no book to speak a word of comfort to me. I took the heartache
away back yonder--but we won't talk about it. We'll poke around down
here a day or two and then go home."

"But hang it, I thought you came to enjoy yourself and not to conjure up
things to make you sad."

"You are right, and you shan't hear any more sad talk out of me."

It was early in the forenoon when they stepped ashore and stood upon the
old levee. The splendid life of the Mississippi steamboat is fading, but
here the glow lingers, the twilight at the close of a fervid day. No
longer are seen the gilded names of famous competitors, "The Lee," "The
Natchez," but unheralded boats are numerous, and the deck-hands' chorus
comes with a swell over the water, and the wharf is a jungle of trade.

In the French market they drank black coffee, listening to the strange
chatter about them, and then aimlessly they strolled away.

"What's your programme?" the boy asked.

"Haven't any."

"Do you want to call on any of the cotton buyers?"

"No, don't care to see them."

"All right; I'll walk until you say quit."

And thus they passed the day, with strolling about, halting to look at
an old tiled roof, a broken iron gate, a wrought iron balcony, a
snail-covered garden wall; and when evening was come they went to a
hotel to rest; but no sooner had night fallen than they went out again
to resume their walk.

"Look here," said Tom, beginning to lag, "I don't want to kick, but I'd
just like to know why I am fool enough to walk all day like a mule on a
tread-mill?"

"You said you'd walk with me."

"Said I would! Haven't I?"

"Yes," the giant drawled, "in a manner."

"If I haven't walked I don't know what you call walking. You have made a
machine of me, a corn-planter. Would you mind telling me where we are
going now?"

"I confess I don't know," the giant answered.

"Then let us look around and find out. Right now I'd rather be in old
Gid's house, sitting with s