o16 LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

were likelv to be from the river. But I suspected that the ranks
were thin" now, and the steamboatraen no longer an aristocracy.
Why, in my time they used to call the 'barkeep' Bill, or Joe, or
Tom, and slap him on tbe shoulder \ I watched for that. But none

of these people did
it. Manifestly a
glory that once was
had dissolved and
vanished away in
these twenty-one
years.

When I went up
to my room, I found
there the young man
called Rogers, crying.
Hogers was not his
name; neither was
Jones, Brown, Dex-
ter, Ferguson, Bas-
com, nor Thompson;
but he answered to
either of these that a
body found handy in
an emergency; or to
any other name, in
fact, if he perceived
that you meant him.
He said—

c What is a person
to do bere when he wants a drink of water 2—drink this slush ? *

* Can't you drink it I'

* I could if I had some other water to wash it with/

Here was a thing which had not changed ; a score of years had
not afiected this water's mulatto complexion in the least j a score of
centuries would succeed no better, perhaps. It comes out of the
turbulent, bank-caving Missouri, and every tumblerful of it holds
nearly an acre of land in solution. I got *•*"» iact from the bishop

* DO YOU DBIHK THIS SLUSH ? *