n I comes off, 'Lark,' says he, 'find me a gal, raather
pale, tidy, hard's a nut, and not bigger'n a cotton bale.' Wall, says I,
'I will,' and, Gin'ral, Phylly's the gal! She'll hev good times, live
like a queen, hev wines, dresses, hosses, operas, and all them sort o'
things--ye knows them ar fellers doan't stand fur trifles.' 'Yes, I
knows, Lark,' says the Gin'ral, 'and bein' it's so, ye kin take har,
Lark; but I wouldn't sell har ter ary nother man livin'--if I would,
d----n me. Ye kin hev har, Lark, but ye must take the young 'uns; she's
got two, ye knows, and it hain't Christian-like ter sell 'em apart.'
'D----n the young 'uns, Gin'ral,' says I,' I karn't do nary a thing with
them. What'll one o' them young bloods want o' them? They goes in fur
home manufactures.' 'Yes, I knows, Lark,' says he, 'but ye kin sell 'em
off thar--ony planter'll buy 'em--they'll pay ter raise. They're two
likely little gals, ye knows; honest born, white father, and'll make
han'some wimmin--han'somer'n thar mother, and sell higher when they's
grow'd; ye'd better take 'em, Lark. If ye doan't, I'm d----d if I'll
sell ye the mother; fur, ye see, I _must_ have the hull vally, now,
that's honest.' 'Wall, Gin'ral,' says I, 'ye allers talks right out,
that's what I likes in ye. What's the price?' 'Wall,' says he, 'bein'
it's ye, and ye've a good master in yer eye for Phylly, I'll say two
thousand fur the lot--the gal alone'll fetch twenty-five hun'red down
ter Orleans.' 'Whew!' says I, 'Gin'ral, ye've been a takin' suthin'.
(But he hadn't; he war soberer than a church clock; 'twarn't more'n
'lev'n, and he's never drunk 'fore evenin'.) Wall,' says I, 'karn't
think of it, nohow, Gin'ral.' Then he come down ter eighteen, but I
counted out sixteen fifty--good rags of the old State Bank--and I'm
blamed if he didn't take it. I'd no idee he wud; but debt, Mr. Kirke,
debt's the devil--but it helps us, 'cause, I s'pose (and he laughed his
hardened, brutal laugh), we do the devil's own work. But be thet how it
may, if these high flyin' planters didn't run inter it, and hev ter pay
up, nigger spec'latin' wouldn't be worth follerin'. Well, I took the
nig's, and thar they is; and bein' it's you, Mr. Kirke, and yer a friend
of the ole man, you shill hev the lot fur a hun'red and fifty more, or
the 'ooman alone fur fifteen hun'red; but ary nother white man couldn't
toch 'em fur less'n two thousand--if they could, d----n me.'

The stage had not arrived, and I ha