LIFE  ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

learned to read the face of the water as one would cull the news from
the morning paper; and finally, when I had trained my dull memory
to treasure up an endless array of soundings and crossing-marks, and
keep fast hold of them, I judged that my education was complete: so
I got to tilting my cap to the side of my head, and wearing a tooth-
pick in my mouth at the wheel. Mr. Bixby had his eye on these airs.
One day he said—
' What is the height of that bank yonder, at Burgess's 1'
' How can I tell, sir ?    It is three quarters of a mile away.'

* Very poor eye—very poor.
Take the glass.'
I took the glass, and pre-
sently said—
*I can't tell. I suppose
that that bank is about a foot
and a half high/
' Foot and a half! That's
a six-foot bank. How high
•was the bank along here last
trip?'
' I don't know; I never
noticed.'
'You didn't?    Well, you
must always do it hereafter.'
'Why?'
'WEABING A TOOTHPICK.'
'Because you'll have to
know a good many things that
it tells you. For one thing, it tells you the stage of the river—tells
you whether there's -more water or less in the river along here than
there was last trip.'
*	The leads tell me that.'    I rather thought I had the advantage
of him there.
6 Yes, but suppose the leads lie 1 The bank would tell you so,
and then you'd stir those leadsmen up a bit. There was a ten-foot
bank here last trip, and there is only a six-foot bank now. What does
that signify ?'
*	That the river is four feet higher than it was last trip.'