When I find a well-drawn character in fiction or biography, I generally take a warm personal interest in him, for the reason that I have known him before--met him on the river.
The figure that comes before me oftenest, out of the shadows of that vanished time, is that of Brown, of the steamer 'Pennsylvania'-- the man referred to in a former chapter, whose memory was so good and tiresome.
He was a middle-aged, long, slim, bony, smooth-shaven, horse-faced, ignorant, stingy, malicious, snarling, fault hunting, mote-magnifying tyrant.

I early got the habit of coming on watch with dread at my heart.
No matter how good a time I might have been having with the off-watch below, and no matter how high my spirits might be when I started aloft, my soul became lead in my body the moment I approached the pilot-house.
I still remember the first time I ever entered the presence of that man.
The boat had backed out from St.Louis and was 'straightening down;' I ascended to the pilot-house in high feather, and very proud to be semi-officially a member of the executive family of so fast and famous a boat.

Brown was at the wheel.

I paused in the middle of the room, all fixed to make my bow, but Brown did not look around.

I thought he took a furtive glance at me out of the corner of his eye, but as not even this notice was repeated, I judged I had been mistaken.