than a horse; he'd like to see the man who would argue the point.

Mrs. Beecher Stowe was then writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin," at too great
a distance to hear the challenge, but a greenhorn ventured to argue
the point.

"What about the mulatto? Half black, half white. His father being a
white man had a whole soul; his mother being black had no soul. Has
the mulatto a whole soul, half a soul, or no soul at all?"

The captain paused in his walk, with both hands in his pockets, gazed
at the argumentative greenhorn, turned his quid, spat across the
canal, went away whistling "Old Dan Tucker," and left the question of
the mulatto's soul unsolved.

When I arrived at Joliet there was a land boom at Chicago. The canal
company had cut up their alternate sections, and were offering them
at the usual alarming sacrifice. A land boom is a dream
of celestial bliss. While it lasts, the wisest men and the greatest
fools walk with ecstatic steps through the golden streets of a New
Jerusalem. I have been there three times. It is dreadful to wake up
and to find that all the gold in the street is nothing but moonshine.

I proceeded to the Lake City to lay the foundation of my fortune by
buying town lots. I laid the foundation on a five-acre block in West
Joliet, but had to borrow seven dollars from my nearest friend to pay
the first deposit. Chicago was then a small but busy wooden town,
with slushy streets, plank sidewalks, verandahs full of rats, and
bedrooms humming with mosquitoes. I left it penniless but proud, an
owner of real estate.