ous wares. A third
one, on the other side, still unoccupied, was surrounded by a group,
waiting the moment of sale to begin. And here we may recognize the St.
Clare servants,--Tom, Adolph, and others; and there, too, Susan and
Emmeline, awaiting their turn with anxious and dejected faces. Various
spectators, intending to purchase, or not intending, examining, and
commenting on their various points and faces with the same freedom that
a set of jockeys discuss the merits of a horse.

"Hulloa, Alf! what brings you here?" said a young exquisite, slapping
the shoulder of a sprucely-dressed young man, who was examining Adolph
through an eye-glass.

"Well! I was wanting a valet, and I heard that St. Clare's lot was
going. I thought I'd just look at his--"

"Catch me ever buying any of St. Clare's people! Spoilt niggers, every
one. Impudent as the devil!" said the other.

"Never fear that!" said the first. "If I get 'em, I'll soon have their
airs out of them; they'll soon find that they've another kind of master
to deal with than Monsieur St. Clare. 'Pon my word, I'll buy that
fellow. I like the shape of him."

"You'll find it'll take all you've got to keep him. He's deucedly
extravagant!"

"Yes, but my lord will find that he _can't_ be extravagant with _me_.
Just let him be sent to the calaboose a few times, and thoroughly
dressed down! I'll tell you if it don't bring him to a sense of his
ways! O, I'll reform him, up hill and down,--you'll see. I buy him,
that's flat!"

Tom had been standing wistfully examining the multitude of faces
thronging around him, for one whom he would wish to call master. And if
you should ever be under the necessity, sir, of selecting, out of two
hundred men, one who was to become your absolute owner and disposer, you
would, perhaps, realize, just as Tom did, how few there were that you
would feel at all comfortable in being made over to. Tom saw abundance
of men,--great, burly, gruff men; little, chirping, dried men;
long-favored, lank, hard men; and every variety of stubbed-looking,
commonplace men, who pick up their fellow-men as one picks up chips,
putting them into the fire or a basket with equal unconcern, according
to their convenience; but he saw no St. Clare.

A little before the sale commenced, a short, broad, muscular man, in a
checked shirt considerably open at the bosom, and pantaloons much the
worse for dirt and wear, elbowed his way through the crowd, like one who
is going