So he went to the friend whose kindly appreciation had put a monetary value upon the emanations from his brain, and suggested that now was the time for the besom of reform to get in its work, and by discharging him to clear the way for new and improved editorial talent. But the friend received the suggestion with contumely, threatening to do the editor bodily harm if he so much as mentioned or even contemplated any attempt to escape. The scheme was perforce postponed for a year, and in the meantime attempts were made to gather useful information upon the subject. The plan seemed simple enough--to leave Chicago by the Drainage Canal, float down to the Illinois River, then down it to the Mississippi, by it to New Orleans, then to strike off through the bayous or canals into the watery wastes southwest, and spend there the time until the approach of the Carnival called us back to the southern metropolis. By starting about September 1st we could accompany the ducks on their southern journey, and have plenty of time to dawdle along, stopping wherever it seemed good to us. So we went to work to gather information. The great bookstores were ransacked for books descriptive of houseboat trips down the Mississippi. There were none. Then we asked for charts of the Illinois and Mississippi. There were none of the former in existence; of the latter the Government was said to have published charts of the river from St. Louis to the Gulf; and these were ordered, though they were somewhat old, and the river changes constantly. Then a search was made for books on American houseboats and trips made upon them; books giving some rational information as to what such things are, how they are procured, furnished, managed, what is to be had and what avoided; but without avail. Even logs of canoe trips on the great river, and accounts of recent steamer trips, are singularly scarce. People insisted on forcing upon our notice Bangs' "Houseboat on the Styx," despite our reiterated asseverations that we did not care to travel over that route just now. Black's "Strange Adventures of a Houseboat" is principally remarkable for the practical information it does not give. Scarcely a juvenile was to be found treating of the subjects; nor have the novelists paid any attention to the rivers for a third of a century. Books of travel on the great system of inland American waters are similarly rare.