and, with some knowledge of carpentry and a good performer on
the violin,--but evasions must be checked, and I cannot see why Mr.
Mellasys's method was too severe. Mr. Mellasys was also considered a
very unscrupulous person in financial transactions,--indeed, what would
be named in some communities a swindler; and I have heard it whispered
that the estimable, but somewhat obese and drowsy person who passed as
his wife was not a wife, ceremonially speaking. The dusky hues of her
complexion were also attributed to an infusion of African blood. There
was certainly more curl in her hair than I could have wished; and
Saccharissa's wiggy looks waged an irrepressible conflict with the
unguents which strove to reduce their crispness.

Indeed, why should I not be candid? Mellasys _per se_ was a pill, Mrs.
Mellasys was a dose, and Saccharissa a bolus, to one of my refined and
sensitive taste.

But the sugar coated them.

To marry the daughter of the great sugar-planter of Louisiana I would
have taken medicines far more unpalatable and assafoetidesque than any
thus far offered.

Meanwhile Mr. Mellasys Plickaman, cousin of my betrothed, had changed
his tactics and treated me with civility and confidence. We drank
together freely, sometimes to the point of inebriation. Indeed, unless
he put me to bed, on the evening before the day of the events I am about
to describe, I do not know how I got there.

Morning dawned on the sixth of November.

I was awakened, as usual, by the outcries of the refractory negroes
receiving their matinal stripes in the whipping-house. Feeling a little
languid and tame, I strolled down to witness the spectacle.

It stimulated me quite agreeably. The African cannot avoid being comic.
He is the grotesque element in our civilization. He will be droll even
under the severest punishment. His contortions of body, his grimaces,
his ejaculations of "O Lor'! O Massa!" as the paddle or the lash strikes
his flesh, are laughable in the extreme.

I witnessed the flagellation of several pieces of property of either
sex. The sight of their beating had the effect of a gentle tickling upon
me. The tone of my system was restored. I grew gay and lightsome. I
exchanged jokes with the overseer. He appreciated my mood, and gave a
farcical turn to the incidents of the occasion.

I enjoyed my breakfast enormously. Saccharissa never looked so sweet;
Mr. Mellasys never so little like--pardon the expression--a cross
betwee