CUT-OFFS AND STEPHEN Wl
are ! there, just stand so, and let me look at you ! Just the same
old noble countenance.' [To Yates's friend :] ' Just look at him!
Look at him ! Ain't It just good to look at him I Ain't it now 1
Ain't he just a picture ! Some call him a picture ; / call him a
panorama! That's what he is—an entire panorama. And now I'm
reminded! How I do wish I could have seen you an hoar earlier !
For twenty-four hours I've been saving up that two hundred and
fifty dollars for you ; been looking for you everywhere. I waited at
the Planter's from six yesterday evening till two o'clock this morning,
without rest or food; my wife says, " Where have you been all
night ? " I said, " This debt lies heavy on my mind." She says, " In
ill my days I never saw a man take a debt to heart the way you do."
I said, " It's my nature; how can / change it ? " She says, " Well,
do go to bed and get some rest." I said, " Not till that poor, noble
young man has got his money." So I set up all night, and this
morning out I shot, and the first man I struck told me you had
shipped on the " Grank Turk " and gone to Nfcw Orleans. Well, sir,
I had to lean up against a building and cry. So help me goodness, I
couldn't help it. The man that owned the place come out cleaning
up with a rag, and said he didn't like to have people cry against his
building, and then it seemed to me that the whole world had turned
against me, and it wasn't any use to live any more; and coming
along an hour ago, suffering no man knows what agony, I met Jim
Wilson and paid him the two hundred and fifty dollars on account;
and to think that here you are, now, and I haven't got a cent! But
as sure as I am standing here on this ground on this particular
briefc,—there, I've scratched a mark on the brick to remember it by,—
I'll borrow that money and pay it over to you at twelve o'clock sharp,
to-morrow ! ITow, stand so; let me look at you just once more.'
And so on. Yates's life became a burden to him. He could not
escape his debtor and his debtor's awful sufferings on account of not
being able to pay. He dreaded to show himself in the street, lest he
should find Stephen lying in wait for him at the corner.
Bogart's billiard saloon was a great resort for pilots in those days.
They met there about as much to exchange river news as to play.
One morning Yates was there; Stephen was there, too, but kept out
of sight. But by and by, when about all the pilots had arrived who