when the bayou overflowed."


MR. BAPTISTE

He might have had another name; we never knew. Some one had
christened him Mr. Baptiste long ago in the dim past, and it
sufficed. No one had ever been known who had the temerity to ask
him for another cognomen, for though he was a mild-mannered
little man, he had an uncomfortable way of shutting up
oyster-wise and looking disagreeable when approached concerning
his personal history.

He was small: most Creole men are small when they are old. It is
strange, but a fact. It must be that age withers them sooner and
more effectually than those of un-Latinised extraction. Mr.
Baptiste was, furthermore, very much wrinkled and lame. Like the
Son of Man, he had nowhere to lay his head, save when some kindly
family made room for him in a garret or a barn. He subsisted by
doing odd jobs, white-washing, cleaning yards, doing errands, and
the like.

The little old man was a frequenter of the levee. Never a day
passed that his quaint little figure was not seen moving up and
down about the ships. Chiefly did he haunt the Texas and Pacific
warehouses and the landing-place of the Morgan-line steamships.
This seemed like madness, for these spots are almost the busiest
on the levee, and the rough seamen and 'longshoremen have least
time to be bothered with small weak folks. Still there was
method in the madness of Mr. Baptiste. The Morgan steamships, as