[Life On The Mississippi by Mark Twain]@TWC D-Link bookLife On The Mississippi CHAPTER 7 A Daring Deed 2/13
They were likewise welcome because all pilots are tireless talkers, when gathered together, and as they talk only about the river they are always understood and are always interesting.
Your true pilot cares nothing about anything on earth but the river, and his pride in his occupation surpasses the pride of kings. We had a fine company of these river-inspectors along, this trip.
There were eight or ten; and there was abundance of room for them in our great pilot-house.
Two or three of them wore polished silk hats, elaborate shirt-fronts, diamond breast-pins, kid gloves, and patent-leather boots. They were choice in their English, and bore themselves with a dignity proper to men of solid means and prodigious reputation as pilots.
The others were more or less loosely clad, and wore upon their heads tall felt cones that were suggestive of the days of the Commonwealth. I was a cipher in this august company, and felt subdued, not to say torpid.
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