d of Wong Lee's
goodness. Suddenly he knelt and touched his forehead three times to the
floor at Alice's feet. "Missee, please, you let me stay?" he pleaded.
"Po Lun plenty work. Washee, cookee, clean-em house." His glance strayed
toward the cradle. "Takem care you' li'l boy."

Benito glanced at Alice questioningly. "Would you--trust him?" he
whispered.

"Yes," she said impulsively. "He has a good face ... and we need a
servant." She beckoned to Po Lun. "Come, I will show you the kitchen and
a place to sleep."

* * * * *

Broderick came back from Washington and entered actively into the State
campaign. He found its politics a hodge-podge of unsettled, bitter
policies. The Republicans made overtures to him; they sought a coalition
with the Anti-Lecompton Democrats as opposed to Chivalry or Solid South
Democracy.

Benito and Alice saw little of Broderick. He was here, there,
everywhere, making impassioned, often violent speeches. Most of them
were printed in the daily papers.

"They'll be duelling soon," said Windham anxiously, as he read of
Broderick's accusations of "The Lime Point Swindle," "The Mail-carrying
Conspiracy," his reference to Gwin and Latham as "two great criminals,"
to the former, "dripping with corruption."

Then came Judge Terry with an unprovoked attack on members of the
Anti-Lecompton party. "They are the personal chattels of one man," he
said, "a single individual whom they are ashamed of. They belong heart,
soul, body and breeches to David C. Broderick. Afraid to acknowledge
their master they call themselves Douglas Democrats.... Perhaps they
sail under the flag of Douglas, but it is the Black Douglas, whose name
is Frederick, not Stephen."

Frederick Douglas was a negro. Therefore, Terry's accusation was the
acme of insult and contumely, which a Southerner's imagination could
devise. Broderick read it in a morning paper as he breakfasted with
friends in the International Hotel and, wounded by the thrust from one
he deemed a friend, spoke bitterly:

"I have always said that Terry was the only honest man on the bench of a
miserably corrupt court. But I take it all back. He is just as bad as
the others."

By some evil chance, D.W. Perley overheard that statement--which
proceeded out of Broderick's momentary irritation. Perley was a man of
small renown, a lawyer, politician and a whilom friend of Terry.
Instantly he seized the opportunity to force a quarrel,