I killed Brown every night for months; not in old, stale, commonplace ways, but in new and picturesque ones;--ways that were sometimes surprising for freshness of design and ghastliness of situation and environment.
Brown was ALWAYS watching for a pretext to find fault; and if he could find no plausible pretext, he would invent one.

He would scold you for shaving a shore, and for not shaving it; for hugging a bar, and for not hugging it; for 'pulling down' when not invited, and for not pulling down when not invited; for firing up without orders, and for waiting FOR orders.

In a word, it was his invariable rule to find fault with EVERYTHING you did; and another invariable rule of his was to throw all his remarks (to you) into the form of an insult.
One day we were approaching New Madrid, bound down and heavily laden.
Brown was at one side of the wheel, steering; I was at the other, standing by to 'pull down' or 'shove up.' He cast a furtive glance at me every now and then.

I had long ago learned what that meant; viz., he was trying to invent a trap for me.

I wondered what shape it was going to take.