come ag'in, and dey's in de ole
places like afo' de Mexican wah! and dey don' bin payin' noffin'. But
we gets along, sah,--we gets along,--not in de prima facie style, sah!
mebbe not in de modden way dut de Kernel don't like; but we keeps
ourse'f, sah, and has wine fo' our friends. When yo' come again, sah,
yo' 'll find de Widder Glencoe on de sideboard."

"Has the colonel many friends here?"

"Mos' de ole ones bin done gone, sah, and de Kernel don' cotton to de
new. He don' mix much in sassiety till de bank settlements bin gone
done. Skuse me, sah!--but you don' happen to know when dat is? It
would be a pow'ful heap off de Kernel's mind if it was done. Bein' a
high and mighty man in committees up dah in Sacramento, sah, I didn't
know but what yo' might know as it might come befo' yo'."

"I'll see about it," said Paul, with an odd, abstracted smile.

"Shampoo dis mornen', sah?"

"Nothing more in this line," said Paul, rising from his chair, "but
something more, perhaps, in the line of your other duties. You're a
good barber for the public, George, and I don't take back what I said
about your future; but JUST NOW I think the colonel wants all your
service. He's not at all well. Take this," he said, putting a
twenty-dollar gold piece in the astonished servant's hand, "and for the
next three or four days drop the shop, and under some pretext or
another arrange to be with him. That money will cover what you lose
here, and as soon as the colonel's all right again you can come back to
work. But are you not afraid of being recognized by some one?"

"No, sah, dat's just it. On'y strangers dat don't know no better come
yere."

"But suppose your master should drop in? It's quite convenient to his
rooms."

"Marse Harry in a barber-shop!" said the old man with a silent laugh.
"Skuse me, sah," he added, with an apologetic mixture of respect and
dignity, "but fo' twenty years no man hez touched de Kernel's chin but
myself. When Marse Harry hez to go to a barber's shop, it won't make
no matter who's dar."

"Let's hope he will not," said Paul gayly; then, anxious to evade the
gratitude which, since his munificence, he had seen beaming in the old
negro's eye and evidently trying to find polysyllabic and elevated
expression on his lips, he said hurriedly, "I shall expect to find you
with the colonel when I call again in a day or two," and smilingly
departed.

At the end of two hours George's barber-employer ret