In still another case, two men of his acquaintance were addressing the same woman, and were very jealous of each other. At an offensive remark of one the other said, "I will take your right eye for that!" "Will you?" was the retort, which was scarcely spoken before his enemy had gouged the eye from his head and politely handed it to him. He quietly replied, "I thank you," and put the palpitating orb in his pocket. Then, regardless of the streaming socket and the agony, with the ferocity and swiftness of a tiger he turned on his remorseless mutilator and with one stroke of a long and heavy knife nearly severed his head from his body, and dilated above him shuddering with revengeful joy. Besides listening to innumerable descriptions of this sort, nearly as vivid as sight itself, Forrest actually saw many terrible quarrels and several fatal fights. And the convulsive exhibitions of human passion and energy in their elemental rawness thus afforded were recorded in his imagination and reproduced in the most sensational of his poses and bursts. That he should be, under such a training, melodramatic sometimes, whatever else he added, was inevitable. His school was naturalistic and appalling. Even when he attained to so much that was finer and higher, some portion of this still clung to him. He had, it must be remembered, no academic advantages and no tutor, but was a child of nature. The fourth member of the Forrest group in New Orleans was Charles Graham, captain of a steamer on the Mississippi. He was originally a flatboatman, and was not only familiar with the traditions of the river and the rude border-life concentrated on its current for so many years, but well represented it all in himself. He was widely known among all classes, and especially was such a favorite with the boatmen as to be a sort of a king over them. Though of a kind heart, he was not incapable of taking a frightful revenge when wronged or provoked. One of his men having been abused in a house of disreputable women, he fastened a cable around a large wooden pier on which the house rested, and, starting his steamer, pulled the house over into the river and drowned the whole obscene gang, then proceeded on his way as if nothing had happened.