'Oh, it DID, did it? You wait here a minute.'
Goes to his state-room, brings back a couple of long bottles, and takes
out the corks - says:
'There now, smell them, taste them, examine the bottles, inspect the
labels. One of 'm's from Europe, the other's never been out of this
country. One's European olive-oil, the other's American cotton-seed
olive-oil. Tell 'm apart? 'Course you can't. Nobody can. People that
want to, can go to the expense and trouble of shipping their oils to
Europe and back - it's their privilege; but our firm knows a trick worth
six of that. We turn out the whole thing - clean from the word go - in our
factory in New Orleans: labels, bottles, oil, everything. Well, no,
not labels: been buying them abroad - get them dirt-cheap there. You
see, there's just one little wee speck, essence, or whatever it is, in a
gallon of cotton-seed oil, that give it a smell, or a flavor, or
something - get that out, and you're all right - perfectly easy then to
turn the oil into any kind of oil you want to, and there ain't anybody
that can detect the true from the false. Well, we know how to get that
one little particle out - and we're the only firm that does. And we turn
out an olive-oil that is just simply perfect - undetectable! We are doing
a ripping trade, too - as I could easily show you by my order-book for
this trip. Maybe you'll butter everybody's bread pretty soon, but we'll
cotton-seed his salad for him from the Gulf to Canada, and that's a
dead-certain thing.'
Cincinnati glowed and flashed with admiration. The two scoundrels
exchanged business-cards, and rose. As they left the table, Cincinnati
said -
'But you have to have custom-house marks, don't you? How do you manage
that?'
I did not catch the answer.
We passed Port Hudson, scene of two of the most terrific episodes of the
war - the night-battle there between Farragut's fleet and the Confederate
land batteries, April 14th, 1863; and the memorable land battle, two
months later, which lasted eight hours - eight hours of exceptionally
fierce and stubborn fighting - and ended, finally, in the repulse of the
Union forces with great slaughter.
Chapter 40 Castles and Culture
BATON ROUGE was clothed in flowers, like a bride - no, much more so; like
a greenhouse. For we were in the absolute South now - no modifications,
no compromises, no half-way measures. The magnolia-trees in the Capitol
grounds were lovely and fragrant, with their dense rich foliage and huge
snow-ball blossoms.
