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might have been mistaken for gunners at their trade on the field of battle. But the water ran hot and not too brown, and the St. Charles baths were as lovely as Heaven on Sunday.
    I would have been content to lie in that tub for an hour complete, had a hand not reached through the curtain.
    A snake dropped into my bathwater. Rather a large one.
    I cannot say who was the more discomfited, the serpent or myself, but when that writhing creature splashed between my legs, I leapt like an Irish girl at the sound of a fiddle.
    Perhaps the water’s temperature confused the snake. Whatever the cause, its brief addlement saved me. My leg just cleared the bath as the serpent attacked.
    Its fangs struck metal, which must have been disappointing.
    Now, I will tell you: I have seen the cobra flare its hood and did not like it, but I never saw such a creature as that snake. When it opened its jaws to strike, its maw puffed up like a dirty gunner’s swab. You might have thought it was puking a ball of cotton.
    Its hiss was nasty, too.
    I hastened to put some distance between the two of us, but the curtain I opened concealed a solid brick wall. My entrancehad been accomplished on the other side and the snake, which I judged a proper seven-footer, had taken possession of the tub in between.
    My state of undress was conducive to neither courage nor ingenuity.
    The serpent reared its muscular body. Dripping bathwater, it fixed black eyes on mine.
    I did not even have a towel to hurl at it.
    Twas one of the rare times in my life when I knew not what to do. And that made twice in a day. The cabin was barren of places to hide and the snake commanded each avenue of escape.
    It was about to strike.
    Behind the serpent’s head, the curtain parted again. I looked at the new intruder in amazement. So startled I was I near forgot the snake.
    The serpent winced at the commotion, delaying its strike by a second. In that blessed interval, a derringer pistol appeared between sausage-like fingers and shot it dead.
    Exiting the creature’s skull, the ball nearly caught my leg.
    The snake collapsed with a splash. A portion of its body draped over the lip of the tub, slowly withdrawing into the spoiled water.
    I hardly glanced at the serpent’s final twitches. My attention was devoted to my rescuer, whose rotundity paused halfway inside the curtain.
    “Mr. Barnaby!” I said, astonished.
    “Begging your pardon, Major Jones,” the gentle fellow answered, “begging your pardon most terrible. I doesn’t like to intrude on a gentlemen at his ablutions, I don’t. It ain’t quite the thing. But I ’eard you cursing like a jockey in a race what ain’t been fixed and wondered at the commotion.”
    “Mr. Barnaby,” I said firmly, “it is grateful I am, see … but I do not think I cursed.”
    Surprised I was by his presence in the city. I had not seen him since the previous spring.
    Embarrassed by his error, my acquaintance looked away. “All’s one, sir, all’s one. My ’earing ain’t what it was and I admits it.” He gave the snake another glance. “The St. Charles ’as ’ad a comedown since the war began, sir. Standards ain’t what they was.”
    As for my Christian self, I had begun to wonder whether the citizens of the “Crescent City” kept snakes as pets, the way decent folk keep dogs. The creatures seemed ever-present. Then I recalled the condition in which I stood before my acquaintance, reminiscent of Adam before the Fall—another business that involved a serpent. There was greater cause for Mr. Barnaby’s embarrassment than his misapprehension of my speech.
    The snake was dead, but my rescuer looked agitated.
    “Pardon me, Mr. Barnaby,” I said, “but might there be a towel out there?”
    His remarkable physiognomy quit my sight.
    I must remind you of Mr. Barnaby’s history. He had been a gentleman’s haberdasher in the very city where we stood that night. Until the Yellow Fever took his family. Thereafter, he lost his spunk