6$ THE MISSISSIPPI.

53$
out something wonderful to tell. Which is not the style of Eoberfe
Styles, by as much as three fathom— maybe quarter-Za?*.'
[My ! Was this Bob Styles 1 — This moustached and stately
figure I _ A slim enough cub, in my time. How he has improved in
comeliness in five-and-twenty years — and in the noble art of inflating
his facts.] After these musings, I said aloud —
* I should think that dredging out the alligators wouldn't have
done much good, because they could come back again right away.'
* If you had had as much experience of alligators as I have, you
wouldn't folk like that. You dredge an alligator once and he's con-
vinced. It's the last you hear of him. He wouldn't come back for
pie. If there's one thing that an alligator is more down on than
another, its being dredged. Besides, they were not simply shoved out
of the way ; the most of the seoopful were scooped aboard ; they
emptied them into the hold ; and when they had got a trip, they took
them to Orleans to the Government works.'
< What for?'
* Why, to make soldier-shoes out of their hides. All the Govern-
ment shoes are made of alligator hide. It makes the best shoes in
the world. They last five years, and they won't absorb water. The
alligator fishery is a Government monopoly. All the alligators are
Government property — just like the live-oaks. You cut down a live-
oak, and Government fines you fifty dollars ; you kill an alligator,
and up you go for mispnsion of treason — lucky duck if they don't
hang you, too. And they will, if you're a Democrat. The buzzard
is the sacred bird of the South, and you can't touch him ; the alligator
Is the fiaered bird of the Government, and you've got to let him alone.1
* Do you ever get aground on the alligators now I '
* Oh, no ! it hasn't happened for years.'
* Well, then, why do they still keep the alligator boats in service! '
* Just for police duty — nothing more. They merely go up and
down BOW and than. The present generation of alligators know them
as easy as a burglar knows a roundsman ; when they see one coming,
they break camp and go for the woods.'
After rounding-out and finishing-up and polishing-off the alligator
business, he dropped easily and comfortably into the historical vein,
and told of some tremendous feats of half-a-dozen old-time steamboats