ew
pale and uttered an oath of surprise under his breath, though he rarely
swore. Then he turned his horse's head again towards the auctioneer.
That merry tradesman was extolling the merits of nearly his last lot. "A
very remarkable specimen, gentlemen! Admirers of the antique cannot
dispense with this curious nigger--very old and quite imperfect. Like so
many of the treasures of Greek art which have reached us, he has had the
misfortune to lose his nose and several of his fingers. How much offered
for this exceptional lot--unmarried and without encumbrances of any kind?
He is dumb too, and may be trusted with any secret."

"Take him off!" howled some one in the crowd.

"Order his funeral!"

"Chuck him into the next lot."

"What, gentlemen, _no_ bids for this very eligible nigger? With a few
more rags he would make a most adequate scarecrow."

While this disgusting banter was going on I observed a planter ride up to
one of the brokers and whisper for some time in his ear. The planter was
a bad but unmistakable likeness of my friend Moore, worked over, so to
speak, with a loaded brush and heavily glazed with old Bourbon whisky.
After giving his orders to the agent he retired to the outskirts of the
crowd, and began flicking his long dusty boots with a serviceable cowhide
whip.

"Well, gentlemen, we must really adopt the friendly suggestion of Judge
Lee and chuck this nigger into the next lot."

So the auctioneer was saying, when the broker to whom I have referred
cried out, "Ten dollars."

"_This_ is more like business," cried the auctioneer. "Ten dollars
offered! What amateur says more than ten dollars for this lot? His
extreme age and historical reminiscences alone, if he could communicate
them, would make him invaluable to the student."

To my intense amazement Moore shouted from horseback, "Twenty dollars."

"What, _you_ want a cheap nigger to get your hand in, do you, you blank-
blanked abolitionist?" cried a man who stood near. He was a big, dirty-
looking bully, at least half drunk, and attending (not unnecessarily) to
his toilet with the point of a long, heavy knife.

Before the words were out of his mouth Moore had leaped from his horse
and delivered such a right-handed blow as that wherewith the wandering
beggar-man smote Irus of old in the courtyard of Odysseus, Laertes' son.
"On his neck, beneath the ear, he smote him, and crushed in the bones;
and the red blood gushed up through his m