Read it through once

Here is a story which I picked up on board the boat that night. I insert it in this place merely because it is a good story, not because it belongs here--for it doesn't. It was told by a passenger--a college professor--and was called to the surface in the course of a general conversation which began with talk about horses, drifted into talk about astronomy, then into talk about the lynching of the gamblers in Vicksburg half a century ago, then into talk about dreams and superstitions; and ended, after midnight, in a dispute over free trade and protection.