True, the circumstance enabled Potts for a time to refer to his “body-servant,” and to regale the chair-tilted loungers along the City Hotel front with a tale of picking the fellow up on a Southern battle-field, and of winning his dog-like devotion by subsequent valor upon other fields.  “It was pathetic, and comical, too, gentlemen, to hear that nigger beg me on his bended knees to take better care of myself and not insist upon getting to the front of every charge.  ’Stay back and let some of the others do a little fighting,’ he would say, with tears rolling down his black cheeks.  And I admit I was rash, but—­”

Clem, not long after their arrival, confided to such of us as seemed worthy the less romantic tale that he had found the Colonel drunk on the streets of Cincinnati.  He had gone there to seek a fortune for his “folks” and had found the Colonel instead; found him under circumstances which were typical of the Colonel’s periods of relaxation.

“Yes, seh, anybody coulda had that man when Ah found him,” averred Clem; “anybody could ‘a’ had him fo’ th’ askin’.  A p’liceman offaseh neahly git him—­yes, seh.  But Ah seen him befo’ that, an’ Ah speaks his notice by sayin’, ‘This yeh ain’ no good place to sleep, on this yeh hahd stone sidewalk.  Yo’ freeze yo’se’f, Mahstah,’ an’ of cose Ah appreciated th’ infuhmities of a genaman, but Ah induced him to put on his coat an’ his hat an’ his boots, an’ he sais, ‘Ah am Cunnel Potts, an’ Ah mus’ have mah eight houahs sleep.’  Ah sais to him, ‘If yo’ is a Cunnel, yo’ is a genaman, an’ Ah shall escoht yo’ to yo’ hotel.’  Raght then a p’liceman offaseh come up, an’ he sais, ‘Yeh, yeh! what all this yeh row about?’ an’ Ah sais, ‘Nothin’ ‘tall, Mahstah p’liceman offaseh, Ah’s jes’ takin’ Mahstah Cunnel Potts to his hotel, seh, with yo’ kindness,’ an’ he sais, ‘Git him out a yeh an’ go ‘long with yo’ then,’ so Ah led th’ Cunnel off, seh.  An’ eveh hotel he seen, he sais, ‘Yes, tha’ she is—­tha’s mah hotel,’ but the Mahstahs in th’ hotels they all talk ve’y shawtly eveh time.  They sais, ‘No—­no—­g’wan, tek him out a’ yeh—­he ain’ b’long in this place, that man ain’.’  So we walk an’ walk an’ ultimately he sais, ‘If Ah’m go’n’ a’ git mah eight houahs sleep this naght, Ah mus’ begin sometime,—­why not now?’ So th’ Cunnel lay raght down on th’ thu’faih an’ Ah set mahse’f down beside him twell he wake up in th’ mawnin’, not knowin’ what hahm maght come to him.  An’ he neveh did have no hotel in that town, seh,—­no, seh.  He been talkin’ reglah foolishness all that theah time.  An’ he sais:  ‘Yo’ stay by me, boy.  Ah’s go’n’ a’ go West to mek mah fo’chun.’  Well, seh, Ah was lookin’ fo’ a place to mek some fo’chun mahse’f fo mah folks, an’ that theah Cincinnati didn’t seem jes’ th’ raght place to set about it, so Ah sais, ‘Thank yo’ ve’y much, Mahstah Cunnel,’ an’ Ah stays by him fo’ a consid’ble length of time.”

But, little by little, after their coming to our town the Colonel had alienated his companion by a lack of those qualities which Clem had been accustomed to observe in those to whom he gave himself.  Potts was at length speaking of him as an ungrateful black hound, and wondering if the nation might not have been injudicious in liberating the slave.