stable, where he found that the horse
had been properly cared for and his bill ready and then to his
lodgings,--Todd told him the story of what had happened: At first his
master had firmly intended going to the Eastern Shore--and for a
long stay--for he had ordered his own and Todd's trunks packed with
everything they both owned in the way of clothes. On the next day,
however--the day before the boat left--Mr. Temple had made a visit to
Jemima to bid her good-by, where he learned that her white lodger had
decamped between suns, leaving two months board unpaid. In the effort to
find this man, or compel his employer to pay his bill, out of some wages
still due him--in both of which he failed--his master had missed the
boat and they were obliged to wait another week. During this interim,
not wishing to return to Pawson, and being as he said very comfortable
where he was with his two servants to wait upon him, and the place as
clean as a pin--his master had moved his own and Todd's trunk from the
steamboat warehouse where they had been stored and had had them brought
to Jemima's. Two days later--whether from exposure in tramping the
streets in his efforts to collect the old woman's bill, or whether the
change of lodgings had affected him--he was taken down with a chill and
had been in bed ever since. With this situation staring both Jemima
and himself in the face--for neither she nor Mr. Temple had much
money left--Todd had appealed to Gadgem--(he being the only man in his
experience who could always produce a roll of bills when everybody else
failed)--who took him to the stableman whose accounts he collected--and
who had once bought one of St. George's saddles--and who then and there
hired Todd as night attendant. His wages, added to what Jemima could
earn over her tubs, had kept the three alive. All this had taken place
four weeks or more ago.

None of all this, he assured Harry, had he told Gadgem or anybody
else, his master's positive directions being to keep his abode and his
condition a secret from everybody. All the collector knew was that Mr.
Temple being too poor to take Todd with him, had left him behind to
shift for himself until he could send for him. All the neighborhood
knew, to quote Todd's own hilarious chuckle, was that "Miss Jemima
Johnsing had two mo' boa'ders; one a sick man dat had los' his job an'
de udder a yaller nigger who sot up nights watchin' de hosses eat dere
haids off."

Since that time his