After a brief stay in the northeast part of Texas, that was not very fertile in material, he went by rail to Shreveport and took passage on the Red River boat Argosy for New Orleans. The boat was to start at six o’clock in the evening; but she had a great quantity of cotton to load, and the weather was so cold that it was hard to get negroes to do the loading, so she was delayed till nearly nine. The worst part of the waiting was that supper was not served till the boat started; but Dick amused himself by watching his fellow-passengers. In one party there were five or six young ladies and as many young gentlemen, very lively young folks, and some of the ladies very pretty; but before the boat started the party dwindled to three young ladies, the others having come on board merely to see them off. “Now if I had only had more experience with young ladies,” Dick said to himself, “I’d manage somehow to make the acquaintance of those three. They seem to be very nice ladies, and it would make the time pass pleasantly.” Almost for the first time he regretted that his work had made it impossible for him to enjoy ladies’ society as most young men do. Indeed he had hardly thought of it before; but now he realized that he was sadly lacking in experience as a gallant. “However,” he consoled himself, “very likely I couldn’t manage to be introduced to them, anyhow.” What he desired was destined to be managed for him better than he could have arranged it himself. Soon after the boat started, the clerk, who knew his name because he had written it in the register, stepped up to him and said:-- “There are three young ladies on board without any escort, Mr. Sumner; very fine young ladies, daughters of a cotton planter down the river. I should like to introduce you to them, so that you can escort them to supper.” Of course they were the very young ladies he had been desirous of meeting; and he blessed the good old-fashioned custom of the southern steamboats that makes it the duty of the clerk to see that all unprotected ladies are provided with escorts to take them properly to the table. “It would be a long time, I’m afraid,” he said to himself, “before an escort would be found for a lady on one of our Hudson River or Sound boats.” Dick was surprised at his success in making himself agreeable to his new companions. If one of his articles had been reprinted by fifty different papers, it would not have pleased him more than to find that the young ladies enjoyed his company. “But it’s only because I have a lot of amusing things to tell them,” he modestly thought. “I’m glad they’re not the kind of young ladies who would want to flirt. I can turn my hand to almost anything, but that’s one of the things I certainly could not do.” He had not at that time made a study of any young lady for use in his projected novel.