I've found the method to pay off all my debts, and you'll get
your money!' Hope dawned in Yates's eye; then Stephen, beaming
benignantly, and placing his hand upon Yates's head, added, 'I am going
to pay them off in alphabetical order!'
Then he turned and disappeared. The full significance of Stephen's
'method' did not dawn upon the perplexed and musing crowd for some two
minutes; and then Yates murmured with a sigh -
'Well, the Y's stand a gaudy chance. He won't get any further than the
C's in THIS world, and I reckon that after a good deal of eternity has
wasted away in the next one, I'll still be referred to up there as "that
poor, ragged pilot that came here from St. Louis in the early days!"
Chapter 18 I Take a Few Extra Lessons
DURING the two or two and a half years of my apprenticeship, I served
under many pilots, and had experience of many kinds of steamboatmen and
many varieties of steamboats; for it was not always convenient for Mr.
Bixby to have me with him, and in such cases he sent me with somebody
else. I am to this day profiting somewhat by that experience; for in
that brief, sharp schooling, I got personally and familiarly acquainted
with about all the different types of human nature that are to be found
in fiction, biography, or history.
