whistle; whereupon my companion
and I went ashore.

One of the best boats on the river is the _Kate Adams_ and one of the
most delightful two-days' outings I can imagine would be to make the
round trip with her from Memphis to Arkansas City. But if I were seeking
rest I should not take the trip at the time when it is taken by a score
or more of Memphis young men and women, who, with their chaperones, and
with Handy to play their dance-music, make the _Kate Adams_ an extremely
lively craft on one round trip each year.

Apropos of Arkansas, I am reminded that Memphis is not only the
metropolis of Tennessee, but is the big city of Arkansas and
Mississippi, as well. The Peabody Hotel in Memphis, a somewhat
old-fashioned hostelry, is a sort of Arkansas political headquarters,
and is sometimes humorously referred to as "Peabody township, Arkansas."
It is also used to a considerable extent by Mississippi politicians, as
well as by the local breed. The Peabody grill has a considerable
reputation for good cookery, and the Peabody bar, though it still looks
like a bar, serves only soft drinks, which are dispensed by female
"bartenders." The Gayoso hotel, named for the Spanish governor who
intruded upon Memphis territory for a time, stands where stood the old
Gayoso, which figured in Forrest's raid. The Gayoso made me think a
little of the old Victoria, in New York, torn down some years ago. The
newest hotel in town, at the time of our visit, was the Chicsa, an
establishment having a large and rather flamboyant office, and
considerably used, we were told, as a place for conventions. If I were
to go again to Memphis I should have a room at the Gayoso and go to the
Peabody for meals.

The axis of the earth, which Oliver Wendell Holmes declared, "sticks out
visibly through the center of each and every town or city," sticks out
in Memphis at Court Square, which the good red Baedeker dismisses
briefly with the remark that it "contains a bust of General Andrew
Jackson and innumerable squirrels." This is not meant to indicate that
the squirrels are a part of the bust of Jackson. The two are separate
and distinct. So are the pigeons which alight on friendly hands and
shoulders as do other confident pigeons on Boston Common, and in the
Piazza San Marco, in Venice.

I am always disposed to like the people of a city in which pigeons and
squirrels are tame. Every day, at noon, an old policeman, a former
Confederate soldier I believe he i