or didn't I?"

"Well, you know how I feel about you, Colonel Sellers, and always have
felt. It seems to me that you always know everything about everything.
If that man had known you as I know you he would have taken your judgment
at the start, and dropped his dry battery where it was."

"Did you ring, Marse Sellers?"

"No, Marse Sellers didn't."

"Den it was you, Marse Washington. I's heah, suh."

"No, it wasn't Marse Washington, either."

"De good lan'! who did ring her, den?"

"Lord Rossmore rang it!"

The old negro flung up his hands and exclaimed:

"Blame my skin if I hain't gone en forgit dat name agin! Come heah,
Jinny--run heah, honey."

Jinny arrived.

"You take dish-yer order de lord gwine to give you I's gwine down suller
and study dat name tell I git it."

"I take de order! Who's yo' nigger las' year? De bell rung for you."

"Dat don't make no diffunce. When a bell ring for anybody, en old
marster tell me to--"

"Clear out, and settle it in the kitchen!"

The noise of the quarreling presently sank to a murmur in the distance,
and the earl added: "That's a trouble with old house servants that were
your slaves once and have been your personal friends always."

"Yes, and members of the family."

"Members of the family is just what they become--THE members of the
family, in fact. And sometimes master and mistress of the household.
These two are mighty good and loving and faithful and honest, but hang
it, they do just about as they please, they chip into a conversation
whenever they want to, and the plain fact is, they ought to be killed."

It was a random remark, but it gave him an idea--however, nothing could
happen without that result.

"What I wanted, Hawkins, was to send for the family and break the news to
them."

"O, never mind bothering with the servants, then. I will go and bring
them down."

While he was gone, the earl worked his idea.

"Yes," he said to himself, "when I've got the materializing down to a
certainty, I will get Hawkins to kill them, and after that they will be
under better control. Without doubt a materialized negro could easily be
hypnotized into a state resembling silence. And this could be made
permanent--yes, and also modifiable, at will--sometimes very silent,
sometimes turn on more talk, more action, more emotion, according to what
you want. It's a prime good idea. Make it adjustable--with a screw or
something."

The two ladies entered, no