d' of 'the very
first water.' The body servant was a good-looking quadroon, and sported
an enormous diamond pin and a heavy gold watch chain. In his sleek
beaver hat, and nicely-brushed suit of black broadcloth, he looked a
much better-dressed gentleman than any one on the ground.

As we approached, Tom, every pimple on his red face swelling with
virtuous indignation, was delivering himself of the following harangue:

'We doan't put ourselfs on a futtin' with niggers, Mr. Gaston. We doan't
keer if they do b'long ter kid-gloved 'ristocrats like ye is; they
karn't come in har, no how! Ye'd better go home. Ye orter be in better
business then prowlin' round shootin' matches, with yer scented,
bedevilled-up buck niggers. Go home, and wash the smell out o' yer
cloes. Yer d----d muskmelon (Tom's word for musk) makes ye smell jest
like hurt skunks; and ye ar skunks, clar through ter the innards. Whew!
Clar eoeut, I tell ye!'

The young man's face reddened. The blood of the chivalry was rising. He
replied:

'Keep a civil tongue in your head, you thieving scoundrel; if you don't,
the next time I catch you trading with my nigs, I'll see you get a
hundred lashes; d----d if I don't.'

Tom bade him go to a very warm latitude, and denied trading with
negroes.

'You lie, you sneaking whelp; you've got the marks on your back now, for
dealing with Pritchett's.'

Tom returned the lie, when the young man's face grew a trifle redder,
and his whip rising in the air, it fell across Tom's nose in a very
uncomfortable manner--for Tom. The liquor vender reeled, but, recovering
himself in a moment, he aimed a heavy blow at the young gentleman's
frontispiece. That 'parlor ornament' would have been sadly disfigured,
had not the darky caught the stroke on his left arm, and at the same
moment planted what the 'profession' call a 'wiper,' just behind Tom's
left ear. Tom's private dram shop went down--'caved in'--was 'laid out
sprawling;' and two or three minutes elapsed before it got on its legs
again. When it did, it frothed at the mouth like a mug of ale with too
much head on it.

They were not more than six paces apart, when Tom rose, and drawing a
double-barrelled pistol from his pocket, aimed it at the planter. The
latter was in readiness for him. His six-shooter was level with Tom's
breast, and his hand on the trigger, when, just as he seemed ready to
fire, the negro trader coolly stepped before him, and twisted the weapon
from his ha