his lunch,"

the captain put such a world of expression into a long-drawn sigh that
Fred began to feel depressed himself; besides, songs were not numerous
in Fred's repertoire, and those in which there was no allusion to
drinking could be counted on half his fingers. Then he borrowed the
barkeeper's violin, and played the airs which had been his favorites in
the days of his courtship, until Crayme exclaimed:

"Say, Fred, we're not playing church; give us something that don't bring
all of a fellow's dead friends along with it."

Fred reddened, swung his bow viciously, and dashed into "Natchez Under
the Hill," an old air which would have delighted Offenbach, but which
will never appear in a collection of classical music.

"Ah! that's something like music," exclaimed Captain Crayme, as Fred
paused suddenly to repair a broken string. "I never hear that but I
think of Wesley Treepoke, that used to run the _Quitman_; went afterward
to the _Rising Planet_, when the _Quitman's_ owners put her on a new
line as an opposition boat. Wess and I used to work things so as to make
Louisville at the same time--he going up, I going down, and then turn
about--and we always had a glorious night of it, with one or two other
lively boys that we'd pick up. And Wess had a fireman that could fiddle
off old 'Natchez' in a way that would just make a corpse dance till its
teeth rattled, and that fireman would always be called in just as we'd
got to the place where you can't tell what sort of whisky 'tis you're
drinking; and I tell you, 'twas so heavenly that a fellow could forgive
the last boat that beat him on the river, or stole a landing from him.
And _such_ whisky as Wess kept! used to go cruising around the back
country, sampling little lots run out of private stills. He'd always
find nectar, you'd better believe. Poor old boy! the tremens took him
off at last. He hove his pilot overboard just before he died, and put a
bullet into Pete Langston, his second clerk--they were both trying to
hold him, you see--but they never laid it up against him. I wish I knew
what became of the whiskey he had on hand when he walked off--no, I
don't either; what am I thinking about? But I do, though--hanged if I
don't!"

Fred grew pale: he had heard of drunkards growing delirious upon ceasing
to drink; he had heard of men who, in periods of aberration, were
impelled by the motive of the last act or recollection which strongly
impressed them; what if the ca