to build that church after a while!" I always took it as a compliment.
Finally I always did the thing, if after long study it seemed the right
thing to do, or if some one else had not done it in the meantime; just
as I finally told Captain Sproule that I expected to work on a passenger
boat the next summer, and was told by him that he had sold his boat to a
company, and was to be a passenger-boat captain himself the next summer;
and would sign me on if I wanted to stay with him--which I did.

[4] Irving's impersonation of Homer must have nodded when he named this
safe, sane and staunch worthy Hermanus Van Clattercop.--G.v.d.M.

3

I was getting pretty stocky now, and no longer feared anything I was
likely to meet. I was well-known to the general run of canallers, and
had very little fighting to do; once in a while a fellow would pick a
fight with me because of some spite, frequently because I refused to
drink with him, or because he was egged on to do it; and this year I was
licked by three toughs in Batavia. They left me senseless because I
would not say "enough." I was getting a good deal of reputation as a
wrestler. I liked wrestling better than fighting; and though a smallish
man always, like my fellow Iowan Farmer Burns, I have seldom found my
master at this game. It is much more a matter of sleight than strength.
A man must be cautious, wary, cool, his muscles always ready, as quick
as a flash to meet any strain; but the main source of my success seemed
to be my ability to use all the strength in every muscle of my body at
any given instant, so as to overpower a much stronger opponent by
pouring out on him so much power in a single burst of force that he was
carried away and crushed. I have thrown over my head and to a distance
of ten feet men seventy-five pounds heavier than I was. This is the only