Page:Boys Life of Mark Twain.djvu/116

 Henry had started when Brown seized him by the collar and struck him in the face. An instant later Sam was upon Brown with a heavy stool and stretched him on the floor. Then all the repressed fury of months broke loose; and, leaping upon Brown and holding him down with his knees, Samuel Clemens pounded the tyrant with his fists till his strength gave out. He let Brown go then, and the latter, with pilot instinct, sprang to the wheel, for the boat was drifting. Seeing she was safe, he seized a spy-glass as a weapon and ordered his chastiser out of the pilot-house. But Sam lingered. He had become very calm, and he openly corrected Brown's English.

"Don't give me none of your airs!" yelled Brown.

"I ain't goin' to stand nothin' more from you!"

"You should say, 'Don't give me any of your airs,' " Sam said, sweetly, "and the last half of your sentence almost defies correction."

A group of passengers and white-aproned servants, assembled on the deck forward, applauded the victor. Sam went down to find Captain Klinefelter. He expected to be put in irons, for it was thought to be mutiny to strike a pilot.

The captain took Sam into his private room and made some inquiries. Mark Twain, in the Mississippi book, remembers them as follows:

"Did you strike him first?" Captain Klinefelter asked.

"Yes, sir."

"What with?"

"A stool, sir."

"Hard?"