PERPLEXING- LESSONS. 81
* Yes, I thought it was making down a little, last trip. Meet any
boats ?'
* Met one abreast the head of 21, but she was away over hugging
the bar, and I couldn't make her out entirely. I took her for the
* Sunny South'—hadn't any skylights forward of the chimneys.'
And so on. And as the relieving pilot took t;he wheel his part-
ner l would mention that we were in such-and-such a bend, and say
we were abreast of such-and-such a man's wood-yard or plantation.
This was courtesy; I supposed it was necessity. But Mr. W
came on watch full twelve minutes late on this particular night,—a
tremendous breach of etiquette; in fact, it is the unpardonable sin
among pilots. So Mr. Bixby gave him no greeting whatever, but
simply surrendered the wheel and marched out of the pilot-house
without a word. I was appalled; it was a villainous night for
blackness, we were in a particularly wide and blind part of the river,
where there was no shape or substance to anything, and it seemed in-
credible that Mr. Bixby should have left that poor fellow to kill the
boat trying to find out where he was. But I resolved that I would
staod by him any way. He should find Tinat he was not wholly
friendless. So I stood around, and waited to be asked where we
were. But Mr. W------ plunged on serenely through the solid
firmament of black cats that stood for an atmosphere, and never
opened his mouth. Here is a proud devil, thought I; here is a limb
of Satan that would rather send us all to destruction than put him-
self under obligations to me, because I am not yet one of the salt
of the earth and privileged to snub captains and lord it over every-
thing dead and alive in a steamboat. I presently climbed up on the
bench ; I did not think it was safe to go to sleep while t.Ma lunatic
was on watch.
However, I must have gone to sleep in the course of time, because
the next thing I was aware of was the fact that day was breaking,
Mr. W------ gone, and Mr. Bixby at the wheel again. So it was
four o'clock and all well—but me; I felt like a skinful of dry bones
and all of them trying to ache at once.
Mr. Bixby asked me what I had stayed up there for. I confessed
1 ' Partner' is technical for «the other nilot,'
G