boxes, Mas'r Harry? Let's be
off."

"Watcher larfin' at, Mas'r Harry?" he said at last.

"At you, Tom," I replied.

"All right, Mas'r Harry," he replied in the most philosophical way,
"larfin' don't cost nothing, and it's very pleasant, and it don't matter
when it's them as you know; but when it comes to somebody you don't
know, why then it riles."

I turned serious on the instant.

"Do you know what you are talking about, Tom?" I said.

"Sure I do, Mas'r Harry. Talkin' 'bout going abroad."

"But where?"

"I d'know, Mas'r Harry; only it's along o' you."

"But, my good fellow," I said, "perhaps I'm about to do very wrong in
going."

"Then, p'r'aps I am, Mas'r Harry," he replied, "and that don't matter."

"But it might be the ruin of your prospects, Tom."

"Ruin o' my prospecks!" cried Tom. "Hark at him!" and he seemed to be
addressing a pile of chests. "Don't see as there's much prospeck in
looking down into a taller tub. I could do that anywheres."

"But you don't understand me, Tom," I cried.

"Don't want to, Mas'r Harry," he said. "I know as I'm allers gettin' my
face slapped when I go into the kitchen; that I always get the smell o'
the tallow in my nose and can't get it out; and that I hate soap to such
an extent that I wouldn't care if I never touched a bit again."

"Oh, but you'll get on here, Tom, in time, and perhaps rise to be
foreman."

"No, I sha'n't, Mas'r Harry, 'cause I'm coming along with you."

"But don't you see that I am going to a place where it would not be
suitable for you."

"What's sootable for you, Mas'r Harry, would be just as sootable for me,
and I'd work like one of the niggers out there, only harder."

"Niggers out where, Tom?"

"Where we're going, Mas'r Harry."

"How do you know there are any niggers where we are going, sir?"

"Oh, there's sure to be, Mas'r Harry. There's niggers everywheres, I've
heerd tell."

"Oh, but really, Tom," I said, "it is all nonsense. Look here, I'm
going out to join my uncle in South America."

"South America, Mas'r Harry!" said Tom eagerly. "Why, that's just the
very place I want to go to."

"I don't believe it, Tom," I said sharply. "If I had told you I was
going to South Australia, you would have said just the same."

"Dessay I should, Mas'r Harry," he replied grinning.

"Well now, look here, Tom," I continued very seriously, "I am going out
to join my uncle, and if I get on, and can see that there is a good
chan