liberty,"----put in the general.

"And the national health," said the youth. "New Orleans should refuse
every immigrant entrance to the country, and every steamboat on the
Mississippi ought to decline to carry him to his destination!"

The commodore smiled to reply, but the senator broke in with an
anecdote, long but good, of a newly landed German. The judge followed
close with the story of a very green Irishman; and the general, with
mellow inconsequence, brought in a tale to the credit of the departed
Jackson and debit of the still surviving Clay. A new sultriness
prevailed. The judge's palliative word, that many a story hard on Clay
was older than Clay himself, relieved the tension scarcely more than did
Lucian's inquiry whether it was not, at any rate, true beyond cavil that
Clay had treated Jackson perfidiously in that old matter----

That old matter's extreme deadness reminded the group that the repast
was over and Whiggism amply squelched. Besides themselves only the
ladies'-cabin people and the captain, away aft, lingered. The long,
intervening double line of mere feeders was gone and the cabin-boys were
setting the second table. The commodore rose and the seven drifted out
again, with their seven toothpicks, to the boiler deck. There men who
had passed the salt to each other at table were giving each other
cigars, some standing in knots, others taking chairs about the guards.
Almost every one had related himself to some other one or more as
somehow his or their guest and host combined, and had taken his turn or
was watching his chance to recognize the captain as social and civil
autocrat and guardian angel over all. The conspicuousness of the twins
led to stories, in undertone, of the long Hayle-Courteney rivalry.

"Remarkable, how it's run on and on without their ever locking horns,
eh?"

"Mighty nigh did it when the _Quakeress_ burned."

"Oh! do you really think so?"

"I know it, sir!" He who knew spat over the rail, and the one who had
dared to doubt moved on. Between stories there were debates on the
comparative merits of the two types of hull favored respectively by the
rival builders: the slim Hayle model and the not so slim of the
Courteneys.

"After all, sir," asserted a man of eagle eye, "a duck flies faster than
a crane."

"I doubt that, sir," said one with the eye of a stallion. "Not that I
question your word, but----"

Their friends had to separate them.

At that point along came the