d fellow--when did you get in?"

And the young pilots who use to tell me, patronizingly, that I could
never learn the river cannot keep from showing a little of their
chagrin at seeing me so far ahead of them. Permit me to "blow my
horn," for I derive a living pleasure from these things, and I must
confess that when I go to pay my dues, I rather like to let the
d---d rascals get a glimpse of a hundred-dollar bill peeping out
from amongst notes of smaller dimensions whose face I do not
exhibit! You will despise this egotism, but I tell you there is a
"stern joy" in it.

We are dwelling on this period of Mark Twain's life, for it was a period
that perhaps more than any other influenced his future years. He
became completely saturated with the river its terms, its memories, its
influence remained a definite factor in his personality to the end of
his days. Moreover, it was his first period of great triumph. Where
before he had been a subaltern not always even a wage-earner--now all in
a moment he had been transformed into a high chief. The fullest ambition
of his childhood had been realized--more than realized, for in that
day he had never dreamed of a boat or of an income of such stately
proportions. Of great personal popularity, and regarded as a safe
pilot, he had been given one of the largest, most difficult of boats.
Single-handed and alone he had fought his way into the company of kings.

And we may pardon his vanity. He could hardly fail to feel his glory and
revel in it and wear it as a halo, perhaps, a little now and then in
the Association Rooms. To this day he is remembered as a figure there,
though we may believe, regardless of his own statement, that it was not
entirely because of his success. As the boys of Hannibal had gathered
around to listen when Sam Clemens began to speak, so we may be certain
that the pilots at St. Louis and New Orleans laid aside other things
when he had an observation to make or a tale to tell.

He was much given to spinning yarns--[writes one associate of those
days]--so funny that his hearers were convulsed, and yet all the
time his own face was perfectly sober. If he laughed at all, it
must have been inside. It would have killed his hearers to do that.
Occasionally some of his droll yarns would get into the papers. He
may have written them himself.

Another riverman of those days has recalled a story he heard Sam Cleme