watched.
In about an hour here came Dodson with a possum hung over his shoulder
and my dog trottin' at his heels. He 'd been possum huntin' with my
hound--with the finest hound in the State, sir. Now, I appeal to you
all, gentlemen, if that ain't total depravity, what is total depravity?"

"Not total depravity, Beachfield, I maintain, but the very
irresponsibility of which I have spoken. Why, gentlemen, I foresee the
day when these people themselves shall come to us Southerners of their
own accord and ask to be re-enslaved until such time as they shall be
fit for freedom." Old Horace was nothing if not logical.

"Well, do you think there 's any doubt of the darky's guilt?" asked
Colonel Saunders hesitatingly. He was the only man who had ever thought
of such a possibility. They turned on him as if he had been some
strange, unnatural animal.

"Any doubt!" cried Old Horace.

"Any doubt!" exclaimed Mr. Davis.

"Any doubt?" almost shrieked the rest. "Why, there can be no doubt. Why,
Colonel, what are you thinking of? Tell us who has got the money if he
has n't? Tell us where on earth the nigger got the money he 's been
putting in the bank? Doubt? Why, there is n't the least doubt about it."

"Certainly, certainly," said the Colonel, "but I thought, of course, he
might have saved it. There are several of those people, you know, who do
a little business and have bank accounts."

"Yes, but they are in some sort of business. This man makes only thirty
dollars a month. Don't you see?"

The Colonel saw, or said he did. And he did not answer what he might
have answered, that Berry had no rent and no board to pay. His clothes
came from his master, and Kitty and Fannie looked to their mistress for
the larger number of their supplies. He did not call to their minds that
Fannie herself made fifteen dollars a month, and that for two years Joe
had been supporting himself. These things did not come up, and as far as
the opinion of the gentlemen assembled in the Continental bar went,
Berry was already proven guilty.

As for the prisoner himself, after the first day when he had pleaded
"Not guilty" and been bound over to the Grand Jury, he had fallen into
a sort of dazed calm that was like the stupor produced by a drug. He
took little heed of what went on around him. The shock had been too
sudden for him, and it was as if his reason had been for the time
unseated. That it was not permanently overthrown was evidenced by his
waking