A momentary cloud of annoyance darkened Carteret’s brow.  McBane had always grated upon his aristocratic susceptibilities.  The captain was an upstart, a product of the democratic idea operating upon the poor white man, the descendant of the indentured bondservant and the socially unfit.  He had wealth and energy, however, and it was necessary to make use of him; but the example of such men was a strong incentive to Carteret in his campaign against the negro.  It was distasteful enough to rub elbows with an illiterate and vulgar white man of no ancestry,—­the risk of similar contact with negroes was to be avoided at any cost.  He could hardly expect McBane to be a gentleman, but when among men of that class he might at least try to imitate their manners.  A gentleman did not order his own servants around offensively, to say nothing of another’s.

The general had observed Carteret’s annoyance, and remarked pleasantly while they waited for the servant’s return:—­

“Jerry, now, is a very good negro.  He’s not one of your new negroes, who think themselves as good as white men, and want to run the government.  Jerry knows his place,—­he is respectful, humble, obedient, and content with the face and place assigned to him by nature.”

“Yes, he’s one of the best of ’em,” sneered McBane.  “He’ll call any man ‘master’ for a quarter, or ‘God’ for half a dollar; for a dollar he’ll grovel at your feet, and for a cast-off coat you can buy an option on his immortal soul,—­if he has one!  I’ve handled niggers for ten years, and I know ’em from the ground up.  They’re all alike,—­they’re a scrub race, an affliction to the country, and the quicker we’re rid of ’em all the better.”

Carteret had nothing to say by way of dissent.  McBane’s sentiments, in their last analysis, were much the same as his, though he would have expressed them less brutally.  “The negro,” observed the general, daintily flicking the ash from his cigar, “is all right in his place and very useful to the community.  We lived on his labor for quite a long time, and lived very well.  Nevertheless we are better off without slavery, for we can get more out of the free negro, and with less responsibility.  I really do not see how we could get along without the negroes.  If they were all like Jerry, we’d have no trouble with them.”

Having procured the drinks, Jerry, the momentary subject of the race discussion which goes on eternally in the South, was making his way back across the street, somewhat disturbed in mind.

“O Lawd!” he groaned, “I never troubles trouble till trouble troubles me; but w’en I got dem drinks befo’, Gin’l Belmont gimme half a dollar an’ tol’ me ter keep de change.  Dis time he didn’ say nothin’ ’bout de change.  I s’pose he jes’ fergot erbout it, but w’at is a po’ nigger gwine ter do w’en he has ter conten’ wid w’ite folks’s fergitfulniss?  I don’ see no way but ter do some fergittin’ myse’f.  I’ll jes’ stan’ outside de do’ here till dey gits so wrop’ up in deir talk dat dey won’ ‘member nothin’ e’se, an’ den at de right minute I’ll ban’ de glasses ‘roun, an’ moa’ lackly de gin’l ’ll fergit all ’bout de change.”