Up the River

"I don't think it's quite the thing, Alick," said my cousin, Owen Garningham, as we were walking through Bay Street after our return to Jacksonville from the interior of Florida. "What is not quite the thing, Owen?" I inquired, for he had given me no clue to what he was thinking about. "After I chartered your steamer for a year to come here, and go up the Mississippi River—by the way, this river is called 'The Father of Waters,' isn't it?" asked Owen, flying off from the subject in his mind, as he was in the habit of doing. "Every schoolboy in this country learns that from his geography," I replied. "Happily, I was never a schoolboy in this country, and I didn't find it out from the geography. If the Mississippi is the Father of Waters, can you tell me who is the mother of them?" "The Miss'ouri." "O, ah! Don't you feel faint, Captain Alick?" added Owen, stopping short on the sidewalk, and gazing into my face with a look of mock anxiety. "Not at all; I think I could swallow a burly Briton or two, if the occasion required." "Don't do it! It would ruin your digestion. But it strikes me those two rivers are but one."