LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

' Look here! What do you suppose I told you the names of
those points for 1'

I tremblingly considered a moment, and then the devil of temp-
tation provoked me to say :—

* Well—to—to—he entertaining, I thought/

This was a red rag to the bull. He raged and stormed so (he
was crossing the river at the time) that 1 judge it made him blind,

'YOU'RE A SMART ONE,'
because he ran over the steering-oar of
a trading-scow. Of course the traders
sent up a volley of red-hot profanity. ITever was a man so grateful
as Mr. Bixby was: because he was brim full, and here were
subjects who would talk back. He threw open a window, thrust
his head out, and such an irruption followed as I never had heard
before. The fainter and farther away the scowmen's curses drifted,
the higher Mr. Bixby lifted his voice and the weightier his
adjectives grew, "When" he closed the window he was empty. You