the open bar we found an excited crowd, in the center of which was our worldly-minded middie of river-boat memory and "Spring Chicken," his colleague; both talking very loud, and the latter exhibiting a bowie-knife half as long as himself. By considerable talk and more elbowing, we made our way to the boys; and, with the aid of a friendly stoker, got them both safely in my state-room.
Once there, the man of the world—who, unlike the needy knife-grinder, had a story—told it. After getting on the boat, Spring Chicken had been taking mint with sugar and something; and he took it once too often. Seeing this, the worldling tried to get him forward to his state-room; but, as we passed the fort, a jolly passenger, who had also taken mint, waved his hat at the fortification and cried out:
"Hurrah for Muggins!"
Spring Chicken stopped, balanced himself on his heels and announced with much dignity—
"Sir, I am Muggins!"
"Didn't know you, Muggins," responded the shouter, who fortunately had not taken fighting whisky. "Beg pardon, Muggins! Hurrah for Peacock! Yah—a-h!"
"See here, my good fellow, I'm Peacock!" repeated Spring Chicken.
"The thunder you are! You can't be two people!"
"Sir!" responded Spring Chicken, with even greater dignity, "I do not—hic—desire to argue with you. I am Peacock!"
The man laughed. "The Peacock I mean is a northern man——"
"I'm a northern man," yelled the now irate Spring Chicken. "Curse you, sir! what are my principles to you? I'll cut your ear off!" And it was this peaceful proposition that attracted our attention, in time to prevent any trouble with the ugly knife he drew from his back.
Spring Chicken had remained passive during the recital of the more sober worldling. Sundry muttered oaths had sufficed him until it was over, when he made the lucid explanation:
"Reas'l didl't—hic—dam decoy—bet ol red—ev'ry cent—hic!"
This the worldling translated and the murder was out. When we lost sight of the boys on the Southern Republic, they had ordered wine. At dinner they had more; and—glowing therewith, as they sat over their cigars on the gallery—did not "stop their ears," but, on the contrary, "listed to the voice of the charmer." When the stool pigeon once more stood in the doorway, rattling his half dollars, they followed him into the den of the tiger.
"Faro" went against them; "odd-and-even" was worse; rouge-et-noir worst of all; and at night they were sober and dead broke, an unpleasant but not infrequent phase of boat life.
"Didl't have aly wash to spout," remarked Spring Chicken, with his head under his arm.
"Yes—we owed our wine bill," continued the middie, whose worldliness decreased as he got sober, "and our trunk was in pawn to the nigger we owed a quarter for taking care of it. So as soon as the boat touched, I ran for'ard and jumped off, while he waited to keep the things in sight till I came back."
"So he was in pawn, too, egad!" said the colonel.
"Thasso, ol' cock!" hiccoughed Spring Chicken.
"And when I got the money and we went up town, we met the cussed decoy again, and we were fools enough to go again——"
"Williz molley—damniz—hic—eyes!" interpolated the other.
"——And we got broke again—and this fellow that hollowed Muggins looked like the decoy, but he wasn't. That's the whole truth, Mr. Styles."
"Mussput—hic—fi dollus on-jack?" remarked Spring Chicken. "See yer, Styse—o'boy, damfattolman—Con'l is!" and he curled from the lounge to the floor and slept peacefully.
"My young friend," remarked Styles gravely to the middie, as we tucked the insensible Spring Chicken into his berth—"If you want to gamble, you'll do it—so I don't advise you. But these amphibious beasts are dangerous; so in future play with gentlemen and let them alone."
"And, my boy," said the colonel, enunciating his moral lesson—"gambling is bad enough, egad! but any man is lost—yes, sir, lost!—who will drink mint—after dinner!"
With which great moral axioms we retired and slept until our steamer reached the "Queen City of the South."
CHAPTER VIII.
NEW ORLEANS, THE CRESCENT CITY.
At a first glimpse, New Orleans of those days was anything but a picturesque city. Built upon marshy flats, below the level of the river and protected from inundation by the Levee, her antique and weathered houses seemed to cower and cluster together as though in fear.
But for a long time, "The Crescent City" had been at the head of commercial importance—and the desideratum of direct trade had been more nearly filled by her enterprising merchants than all others in the South. The very great majority of the wealthy population was either Creole, or French; and their connection with European houses may account in some measure for that fact. The coasting trade at the war was heavy all along the Gulf shore; the trade with the islands a source of large revenue, and there were lines and frequent private enterprises across the ocean.
For many reasons, it was then believed New Orleans could never become a great port. Foremost, the conformation of the Delta, at the mouth of the river, prevented vessels drawing over fifteen feet—at most favorable tides—from crossing either of the three bars; and the most practical and scientific engineers, both of civil life and the army, had long tried in vain to remedy the defect for longer than a few weeks. Numerous causes have been assigned for the rapid reformation of these bars; the chemical action of the salt upon the vegetable matter in the river water; the rapid deposit of alluvium as the current slackens; and a churning effect produced by the meeting of the channel with the waves of the Gulf. They could not be successfully removed, however, and were a great drawback to the trade of the city; which its location at the mouth of the great water avenue of the whole West, makes more advantageous than any other point in the South.
The river business in cotton, sugar and syrup was, at this time, immense; and the agents of the planters—factor is the generic term—made large fortunes in buying and selling at a merely nominal rate of percentage. The southern planter of ante-bellum days was a man of ease and luxury, careless of business and free to excess with money; and relations between him and his agent were entirely unique.
He had the same factor for years, drawing when he pleased for any amount, keeping open books. When his crop came in, it was shipped to the factor, the money retained—subject to draft—or invested. But it was by no means rare, when reckoning day came, for the advance drafts to have left the planter in debt his whole crop to the factor. In that case it used to cost him a trip to Europe, or a summer at Saratoga only; and he stayed on his plantation and did not cry over the spilt milk, however loudly his ladies may have wailed for the missing crême-de-la-crême of Virginia springs.
The morning after arrival we at last saw "the house;" which, far from being an imposing edifice, was a dingy, small office, just off the Levee, with the dingier sign of "Long, Staple & Middling" over the door. There were a few stalwart negroes basking in the sun about the entrance, sleeping comfortably in the white glare, or showing glancing ivories, in broad grins—each one keeping his shining cotton hook in full view, like a badge of office. Within was a perfect steam of business, and Staple père was studying a huge ledger through a pair of heavy gold spectacles—popping orders like fire-crackers, at half a dozen attentive clerks. Long, the senior partner, was in Virginia—and Middling, the junior, was hardly more than an expert foreman of the establishment.
"Happy, indeed, to meet you, sir!—93 of Red River lot, Mr. Edds—Heard of you frequently—Terribly busy time these, sir, partner away—13,094 middlins, for diamond B at 16–⅓, Adams—. We dine