“We have made a great mistake this time; a very queer kind of Southerner that is.  I’m afraid we took the wrong pig by the ear;” and as he concluded, he betook himself to the group of white-aproned gentlemen before mentioned, to whom he related the incident that had just occurred.

“Quite a severe fall that, I should say,” remarked Mr. Allen.  “Perhaps we have made a mistake and he is not a Southerner after all.  Well he is registered from New Orleans, and I thought he was a good one to try it on.”

“It’s a clear case we’ve missed it this time,” exclaimed one of the party, “and I hope, Ben, when you found he was on the other side of the fence, you did not say too much.”

“Laws, no!” rejoined Ben, “do you think I’m a fool?  As soon as I heard him say what he did, I was glad to get off—­I felt cheap enough, now mind, I tell you any one could have bought me for a shilling.”

Now it must be here related that most of the waiters employed in this hotel were also connected with the Vigilance Committee of the Under-ground Railroad Company—­a society formed for the assistance of fugitive slaves; by their efforts, and by the timely information it was often in their power to give, many a poor slave was enabled to escape from the clutches of his pursuers.

The house in which they were employed was the great resort of Southerners, who occasionally brought with them their slippery property; and it frequently happened that these disappeared from the premises to parts unknown, aided in their flight by the very waiters who would afterwards exhibit the most profound ignorance as to their whereabouts.  Such of the Southerners as brought no servants with them were made to contribute, unconsciously and most amusingly, to the escape of those of their friends.

When a gentleman presented himself at the bar wearing boots entirely too small for him, with his hat so far down upon his forehead as almost to obscure his eyes, and whose mouth was filled with oaths and tobacco, he was generally looked upon as a favourable specimen to operate upon; and if he cursed the waiters, addressed any old man amongst them as “boy,” and was continually drinking cock-tails and mint-juleps, they were sure of their man; and then would tell him the most astonishing and distressing tales of their destitution, expressing, almost with tears in their eyes, their deep desire to return to their former masters; whilst perhaps the person from whose mouth this tale of woe proceeded had been born in a neighbouring street, and had never been south of Mason and Dixon’s[*] line.  This flattering testimony in favour of “the peculiar institution” generally had the effect of extracting a dollar or two from the purse of the sympathetic Southerner; which money went immediately into the coffers of the Vigilance Committee.

[Footnote *:  The line dividing the free from the slave states.]

It was this course of conduct they were about to pursue with Mr. Winston; not because he exhibited in person or manners any of the before-mentioned peculiarities, but from his being registered from New Orleans.