once, and urged hard when I declined."

"Say it all over again, sonny; what was it you told him?"

"I said that would do well enough for a white man; that he could help,
and the white man be helped, just as people were being and doing all the
time, and no one would think a thought about it. But, sir," I said,
"everybody says we can do nothing alone; that we're a poor, shiftless
set; and it will be just one of the master race helping a nigger to
climb and to stand where he couldn't climb or stand alone, and I'd
rather fight my battle alone."

"Yes, yes! well, go on, go on. I like to hear what followed."

"Well, there was just a word or two more, and then he put out his hand
and shook mine, and said good by. It was the first time I ever shook
hands with a white _gentleman_. Some white hands have shaken mine, but
they always made me feel that they _were_ white and that mine was black,
and that it was a condescension. I felt that, when they didn't mean I
should. But there was nothing between us. I didn't think of his skin,
and, for once in my life, I quite forgot I was black, and didn't
remember it again till I got out on the street and heard a dirty little
ragamuffin cry, 'Hi! hi! don't that nagur think himself foine?' I
suspect, in spite of my lameness, I had been holding up my head and
walking like a man."

In spite of his lameness he was holding up his head and walking like a
man now; up and down and across the little room, trembling, excited, the
words rushing in an eager flow from his mouth. His mother sat quietly
rocking herself and knitting. She knew in this mood there was nothing
to be said to him; and, indeed, what had she to say save that which
would add fuel to the flame?

"Well!"--a long sigh,--"after that Mr. Surrey doubled my wages, and was
kinder to me than ever, and watched me, as I saw, quite closely; and
that was the way he found out about Mr. Snipe.

"You see Mr. Snipe had been very careless about keeping the books; would
come down late in the mornings, just before Mr. Surrey came in, and go
away early in the afternoons, as soon as he had left. Of course, the
books got behindhand every month, and Mr. Snipe didn't want to stay and
work overhours to make them up. One day he found out, by something I
said, that I understood bookkeeping, and tried me, and then got me to
take them home at night and go over them. I didn't know then how bad he
was doing, and that I had no business to shield him, and all