rposeless cast than
when it brought Clem to Little Arcady with Potts.

True, the circumstance enabled Potts for a time to refer to his
"body-servant," and to regale the chair-tilted loungers along the City
Hotel front with a tale of picking the fellow up on a Southern
battle-field, and of winning his dog-like devotion by subsequent valor
upon other fields. "It was pathetic, and comical, too, gentlemen, to
hear that nigger beg me on his bended knees to take better care of
myself and not insist upon getting to the front of every charge. 'Stay
back and let some of the others do a little fighting,' he would say,
with tears rolling down his black cheeks. And I admit I was rash, but--"

Clem, not long after their arrival, confided to such of us as seemed
worthy the less romantic tale that he had found the Colonel drunk on the
streets of Cincinnati. He had gone there to seek a fortune for his
"folks" and had found the Colonel instead; found him under circumstances
which were typical of the Colonel's periods of relaxation.

"Yes, seh, anybody coulda had that man when Ah found him," averred Clem;
"anybody could 'a' had him fo' th' askin'. A p'liceman offaseh neahly
git him--yes, seh. But Ah seen him befo' that, an' Ah speaks his notice
by sayin', 'This yeh ain' no good place to sleep, on this yeh hahd stone
sidewalk. Yo' freeze yo'se'f, Mahstah,' an' of cose Ah appreciated th'
infuhmities of a genaman, but Ah induced him to put on his coat an' his
hat an' his boots, an' he sais, 'Ah am Cunnel Potts, an' Ah mus' have
mah eight houahs sleep.' Ah sais to him, 'If yo' is a Cunnel, yo' is a
genaman, an' Ah shall escoht yo' to yo' hotel.' Raght then a p'liceman
offaseh come up, an' he sais, 'Yeh, yeh! what all this yeh row about?'
an' Ah sais, 'Nothin' 'tall, Mahstah p'liceman offaseh, Ah's jes' takin'
Mahstah Cunnel Potts to his hotel, seh, with yo' kindness,' an' he sais,
'Git him out a yeh an' go 'long with yo' then,' so Ah led th' Cunnel
off, seh. An' eveh hotel he seen, he sais, 'Yes, tha' she is--tha's mah
hotel,' but the Mahstahs in th' hotels they all talk ve'y shawtly eveh
time. They sais, 'No--_no_--g'wan, tek him out a' yeh--he ain' b'long in
this place, that man ain'.' So we walk an' walk an' ultimately he sais,
'If Ah'm go'n' a' git mah eight houahs sleep this naght, Ah mus' begin
sometime,--why not now?' So th' Cunnel lay raght down on th' thu'faih
an' Ah set mahse'f down beside him twell he wake up in th' mawnin', not