itizens; in a word,
when they are manoeuvering to exchange their worthless northern wares
for the sterling coin of the south. Presently his arms began to swing
about like those of a telegraph; he threw a long and loving glance at
the two unopened chests, which had apparently slipped down from the top
of a quantity of merchandise piled upon deck, and fallen on the foot and
shoulder of the negro; then measuring the latter with a look of
reproach, he suddenly opened his compressed lips, from which a sharp,
high-toned, schoolmasterlike voice issued.

"Sambo, Sambo! What have you done? Sambo, Sambo!" he repeated, while his
voice became more solemn, and he raised his hands and eyes as if
appealing to heaven for justice. "Sambo, you onlucky nigger, what have
you been a doin'?"

"A 'sarve,' a wonderful 'sarve!'" screamed the man, pointing to the
chests with an appearance of the profoundest grief.

"Heaven forgive you, Sambo! but you have endangered, perhaps sp'iled, a
'sarve,' compared to which all the 'intments and balms of Mecca, Medina,
and Balsora--of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, or whatever other places
they may come from, air actilly no better than cart-grease. Ah, Sambo!
if you were twenty times a nigger, and could be brought twenty times on
the auction table, you wouldn't fetch enough money to pay for the harm
you have done!"

"Boe! Boe!" howled the negro by way of parenthesis.

"Ah, Boe! Boe!" screamed the Yankee, "you may well say Boe, Boe! And you
ain't the only one as may say it, that's sartain. There be ladies and
gentlemen here, as respectable ladies and gentlemen as can be found any
where--ay, even to Boston, the cradle of our independence--and they
might say Boe! Boe! if they knew all. In them two chests are a hundred
tin boxes and glass phials; and if only twenty of them are damaged,
there is more injury done than your hide could pay for, if it were
twenty times as thick and twenty times as vallyable as it is. Your whole
carcass ain't worth one of the boxes of that precious 'intment. Ah,
Sambo!"

"Boe! Boe!" howled Sambo in reply.

"What's the palaver about?" growled some of the Badgers and Buckeyes;
"open the chests, and you'll see what harm's done."

"D'ye ye hear, Sambo?" cried the Yankee with the same immovable
countenance; "you're to hold yer tongue, the gentlemen say; they're
tired of yer noise, and no wonder. What's the use of boohooin' away at
that rate? Helps you nothin'; you desarve what you