The clerk, who was a wag, saw through the captain's joke in a minute and when he winked at him, refused to taste, adding as an apology that “on the eve of so awful an event as the destruction of the world, he couldn't daringly indulge as he formerly did, so he must excuse him.” “Well, go to h--ll, then,” says Tom, half mad. The captain sighed, and the clerk put his hand upon his heart, and turned his eyes upward, as if engaged in inward prayer for his wicked friend. Tom swallowed his glass, and bestowing a fierce look upon the pair remarked, that “they couldn't come any of them thar shines over him, he wasn't any of that _chicken breed!_” “Poor fellow,” muttered the captain. “Alas! Thomas,” chimed in the clerk. Tom slammed the cabin door after him as he went out to descend below, swearing at the same time that all the rest of the world were turning damned fools as well as old Miller. Steam was raised and the Thunder started. For a time Tom forgot the predicted advent, but every time he came up to the bar to get a drink, the serious look of the captain and the solemn phiz of the clerk, threw a cold chill over him, and made him savage with excitement. Every passenger appeared to be talking about Millerism, besides, a waggish friend of the captain's, a passenger on board, having been informed of the engineer's state of mind, passed himself off as a preacher of the doctrine, and talked learnedly on the prophecies whenever the engineer was nigh. It was comic to see the fierce expression of their victim's countenance, and how, in spite of himself, he would creep up to the circles where they were discussing the Second Advent, and listen with all ears to the rehearsal of its terrible certainty, then making for the bar, take another drink, and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets start down to the engine, with a scowl upon his swart countenance that would almost start a flue head from its fastenings. “I'd quit this boat,” said Tom to his assistant, “if it warn't so near 'the 25th of April,'--cuss me if I'd stay aboard another minit, fur captain and all hands are a set of cowardly _pukes!_” “Why, what's the 25th of April got to do with your leavin', Tom?” inquired his partner. “Nothin' particular, but if this confounded blow up or burn up should come off on that day, I wan't to be on the river--its safer; but if I should leave now I couldn't get on another boat by that time, and then I'd be in a _hot_ fix.”