I went up on the _Princess_. My old friend Truman Holmes was the
Captain of her. I was standing on the hurricane deck when we landed
at the mouth of the Red River to take in some passengers. I saw
the negroes carrying some long boxes built like chicken-coops. I
asked Captain Holmes what was in the boxes. He said, "Alligators;"
so I went down stairs and found the man that owned them. I took
him up to the bar and had a drink; then I asked him what he was
going to do with the alligators. He said he had a side-show, and
he was going to play the fairs all over the entire Northern country,
and he wanted them to draw custom. I told him I thought it an
excellent idea, and said, "I have a ten-legged wolf in a cage that
I will get on board at Vicksburg, and I will sell him cheap." This
pleased him, and we took another drink. I insisted on paying for
the drinks, but he would not consent, so we got to be good friends.
After supper we got to playing whisky poker, as I told him I never
gambled much, only once in a while, as planters would play a quarter
antee. He insisted on changing it into a little draw; and as I
had some very good cards in the bar, I was not hard to coax. We
commenced at a quarter antee, and after we had been playing about
an hour he insisted on raising it to $1. He flattered me more than
I ever was flattered before, in telling me I was the luckiest man
to draw he ever saw. The result was, before we reached Natchez,
I had won all his money and his alligators. But he took it so much
to heart about losing his pets, that I sold them back to him and
took his note. It is now older than the daguerrotype man's; and
when I hand in my checks, I will leave the notes with my dear old
mother-in-law for collection.