see them, but I'm into so many operations, and they're not
things a man feels like trusting to other people, and so somehow we keep
putting it off. Fortunes in them! Good gracious, it's the country to
pile up wealth in! Here we are--here's where the Sellers dynasty hangs
out. Hump it on the door-step, Jerry--the blackest niggro in the State,
Washington, but got a good heart--mighty likely boy, is Jerry. And now I
suppose you've got to have ten cents, Jerry. That's all right--when a
man works for me--when a man--in the other pocket, I reckon--when a man
--why, where the mischief as that portmonnaie!--when a--well now that's
odd--Oh, now I remember, must have left it at the bank; and b'George I've
left my check-book, too--Polly says I ought to have a nurse--well, no
matter. Let me have a dime, Washington, if you've got--ah, thanks. Now
clear out, Jerry, your complexion has brought on the twilight half an
hour ahead of time. Pretty fair joke--pretty fair. Here he is, Polly!
Washington's come, children! come now, don't eat him up--finish him in
the house. Welcome, my boy, to a mansion that is proud to shelter the
son of the best man that walks on the ground. Si Hawkins has been a good
friend to me, and I believe I can say that whenever I've had a chance to
put him into a good thing I've done it, and done it pretty cheerfully,
too. I put him into that sugar speculation--what a grand thing that was,
if we hadn't held on too long!"

True enough; but holding on too long had utterly ruined both of them;
and the saddest part of it was, that they never had had so much money to
lose before, for Sellers's sale of their mule crop that year in New
Orleans had been a great financial success. If he had kept out of sugar
and gone back home content to stick to mules it would have been a happy
wisdom. As it was, he managed to kill two birds with one stone--that is
to say, he killed the sugar speculation by holding for high rates till he
had to sell at the bottom figure, and that calamity killed the mule that
laid the golden egg--which is but a figurative expression and will be so
understood. Sellers had returned home cheerful but empty-handed, and the
mule business lapsed into other hands. The sale of the Hawkins property
by the Sheriff had followed, and the Hawkins hearts been torn to see
Uncle Dan'l and his wife pass from the auction-block into the hands of a
negro trader and depart for the remote South to be seen no more