As my negro guide would not listen to my proposal to set the Mellasys
establishment on fire while the inmates slept, I followed him to the
banks of the Bayou. He provided me with abundant store of the homely
food already alluded to. He launched me in a vessel; known to some as
a dug-out, to some as a gundalow. His devotion was really touching.
It convinced me more profoundly than ever of the canine fidelity and
semi-animal characteristics of his race.

I floated down the Bayou. I was picked up by a cotton-ship in the Gulf.
I officiated as assistant to the cook on the homeward voyage.

At the urgent solicitation of my mother, I condescended, on my return,
to accept a situation in my Uncle Bratley's cracker-bakery. The business
is not aristocratic. But what business is? I cannot draw the line
between the baker of hard tack--such is the familiar term we employ--and
the seller of the material for our product, by the barrel or the cargo.
From the point of view of a Chylde, all avocations for the making of
money seem degrading, and only the spending is dignified.

As my conduct during the Mellasys affair has been maligned and scoffed
at by persons of crude views of what is _comme il faut_, I have drawn up
this statement, confident that it will justify me to all of my order,
which I need not state is distinctively that of the Aristocrat and the
Gentleman.




MY ODD ADVENTURE WITH JUNIUS BRUTUS BOOTH.