resolve to stand by his original plan. A little nervous
fussy man, Andy Hawks, with a horrible habit of clawing and scratching from side to side, when aroused or
when deep in thought, at the little mutton-chop whiskers that sprang out like twin brushes just below his
leather-visored white canvas cap, always a trifle too
large for his head, so that it settled down over his ears.
A capering figure, in light linen pants very wrinkled and
baggy, and a blue coat, double-breasted; with a darting
manner, bright brown eyes, and a trick of talking very
fast as he clawed the mutton-chop whiskers first this
side, then that, with one brown hairy little hand. There
was about him something grotesque, something simian.
He beheld the new Cotton Blossom as a bridegroom
gazes upon a bride, and frenziedly clawing his whiskers
he made his unwise decision.
"She won’t high-water this year till June." He was speaking of that tawny tigress, the Mississippi; and certainly no one knew her moods better than he. "Not much snow last winter, north; and no rain to speak of, yet. Yessir, we'll just blow down to New Orleans ahead of French’s Sensation"—his bitterest rival in the showboat business—"and start to work the bayous. Show him a clean pair of heels up and down the river."
So they had started. And because the tigress lay smooth and unruffled now, with only the currents playing gently below the surface like muscles beneath the golden yellow skin, they fancied she would remain complaisant until they had had their way. That was the first mistake.
The second was as unreasoning. Magnolia Ravenal's
