第23章 Perplexing Lessons(2)

So Mr.Bixby gave him no greeting whatever,but simply surrendered the wheel and marched out of the pilot-house without a word.

I was appalled;it was a villainous night for blackness,we were in a particularly wide and blind part of the river,where there was no shape or substance to anything,and it seemed incredible that Mr.Bixby should have left that poor fellow to kill the boat trying to find out where he was.

But I resolved that I would stand by him any way.

He should find that he was not wholly friendless.

So I stood around,and waited to be asked where we were.

But Mr.W----plunged on serenely through the solid firmament of black cats that stood for an atmosphere,and never opened his mouth.

Here is a proud devil,thought I;here is a limb of Satan that would rather send us all to destruction than put himself under obligations to me,because I am not yet one of the salt of the earth and privileged to snub captains and lord it over everything dead and alive in a steamboat.I presently climbed up on the bench;I did not think it was safe to go to sleep while this lunatic was on watch.

However,I must have gone to sleep in the course of time,because the next thing I was aware of was the fact that day was breaking,Mr.W----gone,and Mr.Bixby at the wheel again.

So it was four o'clock and all well--but me;I felt like a skinful of dry bones and all of them trying to ache at once.

Mr.Bixby asked me what I had stayed up there for.I confessed that it was to do Mr.W----a benevolence,--tell him where he was.

It took five minutes for the entire preposterousness of the thing to filter into Mr.Bixby's system,and then I judge it filled him nearly up to the chin;because he paid me a compliment--and not much of a one either.He said,'Well,taking you by-and-large,you do seem to be more different kinds of an ass than any creature I ever saw before.

What did you suppose he wanted to know for?'

I said I thought it might be a convenience to him.

'Convenience D-nation!Didn't I tell you that a man's got to know the river in the night the same as he'd know his own front hall?'

'Well,I can follow the front hall in the dark if I know it IS the front hall;but suppose you set me down in the middle of it in the dark and not tell me which hall it is;how am I to know?'

'Well you've GOT to,on the river!'

'All right.Then I'm glad I never said anything to Mr.W----'

'I should say so.Why,he'd have slammed you through the window and utterly ruined a hundred dollars'worth of window-sash and stuff.'

I was glad this damage had been saved,for it would have made me unpopular with the owners.They always hated anybody who had the name of being careless,and injuring things.