500

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

he acquired a vast hoard of all sorts of learning, and had it pigeon-
holed in his head where he could put his intellectual hand on it when-
ever it was wanted.

His clothes differed in no respect from a i wharf-rat's/ except that
they were raggeder, more ill-assorted and inharmonious (and therefore
more extravagantly picturesque), and several layers dirtier. Nobody
could infer the master-mind in the top of that edifice from tbe edifice
itself.

He was an orator—by nature in the first place, and later by the

training of experience and prac-
tice. When he was out on a
canvass, his name was a loadstone
which drew the farmers to his
stump from fifty miles around,
His theme was always politics,
He used no notes, for a volcano
does not need notes. In 1862, a
son of Keokuk's late distinguished
citizen, Mr. Claggett, gave me this
incident concerning Dean—

The war feeling was running
high in Keokuk (in J61), and a
great mass meeting was to be
held on a certain day in the new
A-thenseum. A distinguished
stranger was to address the bom
Afber tbe building had be»
packed to its utmost capacity with sweltering folk of both sexes, ibe
stage still remained vacant—the distinguished stranger had failed to
connect. The crowd grew impatient, and by and by indignant aal
rebellious. About this time a distressed manager discovered Bea»
on a kerb-stone, explained the dilemma to him, took his book a^raf
from him, rushed him into the building the back way, and told Mm
to make for the stage and save his country.

Presently a sudden silence fell upon the grumbling audience, asd
everybody's eyes sought a single point—the wide, empty, carpefei
stage A figure appeared there whose aspect was familiar to hardi?

HBNEY CLAY DEAN.