f-conceit an'
imprence is allers hardest to kill."

"I scarce know whether to take that as encouragement or otherwise,"
returned Foster, with the first laugh he had given vent to for a long
time.

"Take it how you please, Geo'ge, as de doctor said to de dyin' man--
won't matter much in de long-run. But come 'long wid me an' let's hab a
talk ober it all. Let's go to de bower."

In the bower the poor middy found some consolation by pouring his
sorrows into the great black sympathetic breast of Peter the Great,
though it must be confessed that Peter occasionally took a strange way
to comfort him. One of the negro's perplexities lay in the difficulty
he had to convince our midshipman of his great good-fortune in having
fallen into the hands of a kind master, and having escaped the terrible
fate of the many who had cruel tyrants as their owners, who were
tortured and beaten when too ill to work, who had bad food to eat and
not too much of it, and who were whipped to death sometimes when they
rebelled. Although Foster listened and considered attentively, he
failed to appreciate what his friend sought to impress, and continued in
a state of almost overwhelming depression because of the simple fact
that he was a slave--a bought and sold slave!

"Now, look yar, Geo'ge," said the negro, remonstratively, "you _is_ a
slabe; das a fact, an' no application ob fut rule or compasses, or the
mul'plication table, or any oder table, kin change dat. Dere you am--a
slabe! But you ain't a 'bused slabe, a whacked slabe, a tortered slabe,
a dead slabe. You're all alibe an' kickin', Geo'ge! So you cheer up,
an' somet'ing sure to come ob it; an' if not'ing comes ob it, w'y, de
cheerin' up hab come ob it anyhow."

Foster smiled faintly at this philosophical view of his case, and did
make a brave effort to follow the advice of his friend.

"Das right, now, Geo'ge; you laugh an' grow fat. Moreober, you go to
work now, for if massa come an' find us here, he's bound to know de
reason why! Go to work, Geo'ge, an' forgit your troubles. Das _my_
way--an' I's got a heap o' troubles, bress you!"

So saying, Peter the Great rose and left our forlorn midshipman sitting
in the arbour, where he remained for some time ruminating on past,
present, and future instead of going to work.

Apart from the fact of his being a slave, the youth's condition at the
moment was by no means disagreeable, for he was seated in a garden which
must have born