human
Say, Fred, we're not playing church; give us something that don't bring all of a fellow's dead friends along with it.
gpt
Natchez Under the Hill,
human
Ah! that's something like music, exclaimed Captain Crayme, as Fred paused suddenly to repair a broken string.
gpt
I never hear that but I think of Wesley Treepoke, that used to run the _Quitman_; went afterward to the _Rising Planet_, when the _Quitman's_ owners put her on a new line as an opposition boat. Wess and I used to work things so as to make Louisville at the same time--he going up, I going down, and then turn about--and we always had a glorious night of it, with one or two other lively boys that we'd pick up. And Wess had a fireman that could fiddle off old 'Natchez' in a way that would just make a corpse dance till its teeth rattled, and that fireman would always be called in just as we'd got to the place where you can't tell what sort of whisky 'tis you're drinking; and I tell you, 'twas so heavenly that a fellow could forgive the last boat that beat him on the river, or stole a landing from him. And _such_ whisky as Wess kept! used to go cruising around the back country, sampling little lots run out of private stills. He'd always find nectar, you'd better believe. Poor old boy! the tremens took him off at last. He hove his pilot overboard just before he died, and put a bullet into Pete Langston, his second clerk--they were both trying to hold him, you see--but they never laid it up against him. I wish I knew what became of the whiskey he had on hand when he walked off--no, I don't either; what am I thinking about? But I do, though--hanged if I don't!