nto their
heads, and have taken themselves away. In addition to this, he is much
put out, as he says, at being compelled to forego the pleasure held out
on the previous night, of tarring and feathering two northerners
suspected of entertaining sentiments not exactly straight on the
"peculiar question." A glorious time was expected, and a great deal of
very strong patriotism wasted; but the two unfortunate individuals, by
some means not yet discovered, got the vigilance committee, to whose
care they were entrusted, very much intoxicated, and were not to be
found when called for. Free knives, and not free speech, is our motto.
And this Mr. Keepum is one of the most zealous in carrying out.

Mr. Keepum sits, his hair fretted back over his lean forehead, before a
table covered with papers, all indicating an immense business in lottery
and other speculations. Now he deposits his feet upon it; leans back in
his chair, puffs his cigar, and says, with an air of indifference to the
speaker: "I shall not be able to attend to any business of yours to-day,
Madam!" His clerk, a man of sturdy figure, with a broad, red face, and
dressed in rather dilapidated broadcloth, is passing in and out of the
front office, bearing in his fingers documents that require a signature
or mark of approval.

"I only come, sir, to tell you that we are destitute--" Maria pauses,
and stands trembling in the doorway.

"That's a very common cry," interrupts Keepum, relieving his mouth of
the cigar. "The affair is entirely out of my hands. Go to my attorney,
Peter Crimpton, Esq.,--what he does for you will receive my sanction. I
must not be interrupted to-day. I might express a thousand regrets; yes,
pass an opinion on your foolish pride, but what good would it do."

And while Maria stands silent and hesitating, there enters the office
abruptly a man in the garb of a mechanic. "I have come," speaks the man,
in a tone of no very good humor, "for the last time. I asks of you--you
professes to be a gentleman--my honest rights. If the law don't give it
to me, I mean to take it with this erehand." (He shakes his hand at
Keepum.) "I am a poor man who ain't thought much of because I works for
a living; you have got what I had worked hard for, and lain up to make
my little family comfortable. I ask a settlement and my own--what is
due from one honest man to another!" He now approaches the table,
strikes his hand upon it, and pauses for a reply.

Mr. Keepum cool