The fox hunts, the ’possum suppers, the hoe-downs and jubilees in the negro quarters, the banquets in the plantation-house hall, when invitations went for fifty miles around; the occasional feuds with the neighboring gentry; the Major’s duel with Rathbone Culbertson about Kitty Chalmers, who afterward married a Thwaite of South Carolina; and private yacht races for fabulous sums on Mobile Bay; the quaint beliefs, improvident habits, and loyal virtues of the old slaves—­all these were subjects that held both the Major and Hargraves absorbed for hours at a time.

Sometimes, at night, when the young man would be coming upstairs to his room after his turn at the theater was over, the Major would appear at the door of his study and beckon archly to him.  Going in, Hargraves would find a little table set with a decanter, sugar bowl, fruit, and a big bunch of fresh green mint.

“It occurred to me,” the Major would begin—­he was always ceremonious—­“that perhaps you might have found your duties at the—­at your place of occupation—­sufficiently arduous to enable you, Mr. Hargraves, to appreciate what the poet might well have had in his mind when he wrote, ’tired Nature’s sweet restorer’—­one of our Southern juleps.”

It was a fascination to Hargraves to watch him make it.  He took rank among artists when he began, and he never varied the process.  With what delicacy he bruised the mint; with what exquisite nicety he estimated the ingredients; with what solicitous care he capped the compound with the scarlet fruit glowing against the dark green fringe!  And then the hospitality and grace with which he offered it, after the selected oat straws had been plunged into its tinkling depths!

After about four months in Washington, Miss Lydia discovered one morning that they were almost without money.  The Anecdotes and Reminiscences was completed, but publishers had not jumped at the collected gems of Alabama sense and wit.  The rental of a small house which they still owned in Mobile was two months in arrears.  Their board money for the month would be due in three days.  Miss Lydia called her father to a consultation.

“No money?” said he with a surprised look.  “It is quite annoying to be called on so frequently for these petty sums, Really, I—­”

The Major searched his pockets.  He found only a two-dollar bill, which he returned to his vest pocket.

“I must attend to this at once, Lydia,” he said.  “Kindly get me my umbrella and I will go downtown immediately.  The congressman from our district, General Fulghum, assured me some days ago that he would use his influence to get my book published at an early date.  I will go to his hotel at once and see what arrangement has been made.”

With a sad little smile Miss Lydia watched him button his “Father Hubbard” and depart, pausing at the door, as he always did, to bow profoundly.

That evening, at dark, he returned.  It seemed that Congressman Fulghum had seen the publisher who had the Major’s manuscript for reading.  That person had said that if the anecdotes, etc., were carefully pruned down about one-half, in order to eliminate the sectional and class prejudice with which the book was dyed from end to end, he might consider its publication.