"How can you talk such nonsense, Corrie!" said Alice, laughing. "Down,
Toozle; silence, sir. Go, my dear Poopy, and put on another frock; and
make haste, for I have something to say to you."

Thus admonished, the girl ran to a small apartment that opened off the
kitchen, and speedily reappeared in another tunic. Meanwhile, Corrie had
seated himself on the floor, with Toozle between his knees and Alice on
a stool at his side. Poopy, in a fit of absence of mind, was about to
resume her seat on the iron pot, when a simultaneous shriek, bark, and
roar recalled her scattered faculties, produced a "hee! hee!" varied
with a faint "ho!" and induced her to sit down on the floor beside her
mistress.

"Now, tell me, Poopy," said Alice, "did you ever hear of friends who
were not really friends, but enemies?"

The girl stared with a vacant countenance at the bright, intelligent
face of the child, and shook her head slowly.

"Why don't you ask _me_?" inquired Corrie. "You might as well ask Toozle
as that potato Kickup. Eh? Puppy, don't you confess that you are no
better than a vegetable? Come, now, be honest."

"Hee! hee!" replied Poopy.

"Humph! I thought so. But that's an odd question of yours, Alice. What
do you mean by it?"

"I mean that my papa thinks there are friends in the settlement who are
enemies."

"Does he, though? Now that's mysterious," said the boy, becoming
suddenly grave. "That requires to be looked to. Come, Alice, tell me all
the particulars. Don't omit anything--our lives may depend on it."

The deeply serious manner in which Corrie said this so impressed and
solemnized the child, that she related, word for word, the brief
conversation she had had with her father, and all that she had heard of
the previous converse between him and Henry.

When she had concluded, Master Corrie threw a still more grave and
profoundly philosophical expression into his chubby face, and asked, in
a hollow tone of voice, "Your father didn't say anything against the
Grampus, did he?"

"The what?" inquired Alice.

"The Grampus,--the man, at least, whom _I_ call the Grampus, and who
calls hisself Jo Bumpus."

"I did not hear such names mentioned; but Henry spoke of a wounded
nigger."

"Aye, they're all a set of false rascals together," said Corrie.

"Niggers ob dis here settlement is good mans, ebery von," said Poopy,
promptly.

"Hallo! Kickup, wot's wrong? I never heard you say so much at one time
since I came to t