dian ever drank, and beaten biscuit beyond the skill of any
in our vale save the stout, short-statured, elderly black man who served
me with the grace of an Ambassador. Moreover, I was glad to please him,
and please him it did to set the little table back against the wall of
vines, to place my chair in the shaded corner, and to fetch the
incomparable results of his cookery from the kitchen, couched and
covered in snowy napkins against the morning breeze.

John Randolph Clement Tuckerman he was; Mr. Tuckerman to many simple
souls of our town, and "Clem" to me, after our intimacy became such as
to warrant this form of address. A little, tightly kinked, grizzled
mustache gave a tone to his face. His hair, well retreated up his
forehead, was of the same close-woven salt-and-pepper mixture. His eyes
were wells of ink when the light fell into them,--sad, kind eyes, that
gave his face a look of patient service long and toilsomely, but
lovingly bestowed. It is a look telling of kindness that has endured and
triumphed--a look of submission in which suffering has once burned, but
has consumed itself. I have never seen it except in the eyes of certain
old Negroes. The only colorable imitation is to be found in the eyes of
my setter pup when he crouches at my feet and beseeches kindness after a
punishment.

In bearing, as I have intimated, Clem was impressive. He was low-toned,
easy of manner, with a flawless aplomb. As he served me those mornings
in late summer, wearing a dress-coat of broadcloth, a choice relic of
his splendid past, it was not difficult to see that he had been the
associate of gentlemen.

As I ate of his cooking on a fair Sunday, I marvelled gratefully at the
slender thread of chance that had drawn him to be my stay. Alone in that
little house, with no one to make it a home for me, Clem was the barrier
between me and the fare of the City Hotel. Apparently without suggestion
from me he had taken me for his own to tend and watch over. And the
marvel was assuredly not diminished by the circumstance that I was
beholden to Potts for this black comfort.

Events were in train which were to intensify a thousand fold my
amazement at the seeming inconsequence of really vital facts in this big
life-plot of which we are the puppets--events so incredible that to
dwell upon their relation to the minor accident of a mere Potts were to
incur confusion and downright madness.

Apparently, fate had never made a wilder, more pu