And then, after examining an old stove-funnel, he went out. “He’s no gentleman, anyhow,” said Mrs. Petticum; “and I don’t believe he ever was a friend of the Jacobses.” CHAPTER X. GROUPS ON THE DECK. “Incredulity is but Credulity seen from behind, bowing and nodding assent to the Habitual and the Fashionable.”—_Coleridge._ The Pontiac had passed New Madrid on the Mississippi. She was advertised as a first-class high-pressure boat, bound to beat any other on the river in the long run, but with a captain and officers who were “teetotalers,” and never raced. The weather had been stormy for several days; but it was now a delightful April forenoon. The sun-bright atmosphere was at once fresh and soft, exhilarating and luxurious, in a combination one rarely enjoys so fully as on a Western prairie. The delicate spring tracery of the foliage was fast expanding into a richer exuberance on either bank of the great river. The dogwood, with its blossoms of an alabaster whiteness, here and there gleamed forth amid the tender green of the surrounding trees,—maples, sycamores, and oaks. All at once a magnolia sent forth a gush of fragrance from its snowy flowers. With every mile southward the verdure grew thicker and the blossoms larger. Two miles in the rear of the Pontiac, ploughing up the tawny waters with her sharp and pointed beak, came the Champion, a new boat, and destined, as many believed, to prove the fastest on the river. Whatever her capacities, she had thus far shown herself inferior to the Pontiac in speed. She kept within two or three miles, but failed to get much nearer. Captain Crane of the Pontiac, a small, thin, wiry man, who had acquired a great reputation for sagacity by always holding his tongue, kept puffing away at a cigar, looking now and then anxiously at his rival, but evidently happy in the assurance of victory. The passengers of the Pontiac were distributed in groups about different parts of the boat. Some were in the cabin playing at euchre or brag. Some, regardless of the delicious atmosphere which they could drink in without money and without price, were imbibing fiery liquors at the bar, or puffing away at bad cigars on the forward part of the lower deck. A few were reading, and here and there a lady might be seen busy with her needle. On the hurricane deck were those who had come up for conversation or a promenade. Smokers were requested to keep below. The groups here were rather more select and less numerous than on the main deck. They were mostly gathered aft, so that the few promenaders could have a clear space.