human
We saw a packet coming down the river and the train boy slowed up a trifle to let me off near a landing, but I made a bad jump, rolled over twice in soft mud and came out like a cray-fish, but I made the packet coming to town and just arrived.
gpt
Fine, go on,
human
The fertilizer plant shows nothing from the river but a floating wharf. On the way down we passed Becker's boat going up. It isn't much of a craft, and the packet captain said it wouldn't carry five tons and has hardly power enough to beat the five-mile current of the river, even when empty. A boat, Ben!--a boat is all we need to catch that fellow, and he's the boy we're after. If some one would offer to carry all the material he will need for that new construction he will fall for it--and say, I believe I am on track of one.
gpt
But you are not sure of anything yet.
human
Yes--I am sure they got the two refrigerator cars that sat alongside the car that was robbed of fifteen tons of sausage, and that they use anything that contains grease. Of that I am as certain as any one can be without being able to prove it, and we've got to get him, and we can't get him until we get inside of the plant,
gpt
He has a regular castle--moat and all, Hiram continued,
human
What about this boat you are on track of--but wait, Hiram, don't you want something to eat?
gpt
Yes, I'm hungry as a wolf. I've seen the time I would give ten dollars for the appetite I now have--but wait till I tell you about the boat. For some time past there has been an old fellow coming down to the wharf to pick up bananas, those that break from the bunches when they come out of a ship on the carriers. After a while I noticed that he talked good English, Creole, Spanish, French, in fact he seemed to be able to talk with almost any of the rats that work on the fruit steamers. After I had talked with him I asked what he did with the bananas. He said he kept them until ripe and ate them. Later he told me he lived on a boat as caretaker and had not seen his boss lately. Evidently he has run out of money. He hinted that if he could get his back wages he did not care what became of the boat. I saw him again to-day and he says he has starved long enough, and I am going to see the boat in the morning. It is not in the river, but is in the canal just above the Yazoo station. And say, I've got another scheme to make all the money we want after this matter is settled,
human
What is it, Hiram?
gpt
Wait until I clean up a bit. Then I want you to come out with me and watch a real hungry man eat. I have a long story, and a good scheme. Your blood will be on my hands if you say it isn't. How much is a thousand feet of lumber?
human
A thousand feet of lumber is a thousand square feet an inch thick. In boards a foot wide and an inch thick they would reach a thousand feet,
gpt
That's what I thought, but I can't recall ever having been told.