the agent with a loud laugh.  “A charge of twenty-five dollars freight on a little thing like that!  Why, man, that sum is nearly half her value!  How large was the boat you shipped last fall to Pittsburgh for twenty-five dollars?” “Oh, about twice the size of this one,” answered the agent; “but, size or no size, a boat’s a boat, and we handle so few of them that we have no special tariff on them.”  “But,” said the clerk, “you can easily and honestly establish a tariff if you will treat a boat as you do all other freight of the same class.  Now, for instance, how do common boats rank, as first or third class freight?” “Third class, I should think,” slowly responded the agent.  “Ease your conscience, my friend,” continued the clerk, “by weighing the boat, and charging the usual tariff rate for third class freight.”

The boat, with its cargo still locked up inside, was put upon the scales, and the total weight was three hundred and ten pounds, for which a charge of seventy-two cents per one hundred pounds was made, and the boat placed on some barrels in a car.  Thus did the common-sense and business-like arrangement of the friendly clerk secure for me the freight charge of two dollars and twenty-three cents, instead of twenty-five dollars, on a little boat for its carriage three hundred and fifty-three miles to Pittsburgh, and saved me not only from a pecuniary loss, but also from the uncomfortable feeling of being imposed upon.

In these days of canoe and boat voyages, when portages by rail are a necessary evil, a fixed tariff for such freight would save dollars and tempers, and some action in the matter is anxiously looked for by all interested parties.

I gave a parting look at my little craft snugly ensconced upon the top of a pile of barrels, and smiled as I turned away, thinking how precious she had already become to me, and philosophizing upon the strange genus, man, who could so readily twine his affections about an inanimate object.  Upon consideration, it did not seem so strange a thing, however, for did not this boat represent the work of brains and hands for a generation past?  Was it not the result of the study and hard-earned experiences of many men for many years?  Men whose humble lives had been spent along the rough coast in daily struggles with the storms of ocean and of life?  Many of them now slept in obscure graves, some in the deep sea, others under the tender, green turf; but here was the concentration of their ideas, the ultimatum of their labors, and I inwardly resolved, that, since to me was given the enjoyment, to them should be the honor, and that it should be through no fault of her captain if the Centennial Republic did not before many months reach her far-distant point of destination, twenty-six hundred miles away, on the white strands of the Gulf of Mexico.

CHAPTER II.