“Your principle is the best, I cannot dispute that; but whether you can act it out—­reformers do not make money, you know.”  He examined his saddle-girth and began to tighten it.  “One can condemn—­too cautiously—­by a kind of—­elevated cowardice (I have that fault); but one can also condemn too rashly; I remember when I did so.  One of the occupants of those two graves you see yonder side by side—­I think might have lived longer if I had not spoken so rashly for his rights.  Did you ever hear of Bras-Coupe, Mr. Frowenfeld?”

“I have heard only the name.”

“Ah!  Mr. Frowenfeld, there was a bold man’s chance to denounce wrong and oppression!  Why, that negro’s death changed the whole channel of my convictions.”

The speaker had turned and thrown up his arm with frowning earnestness; he dropped it and smiled at himself.

“Do not mistake me for one of your new-fashioned Philadelphia ‘negrophiles’; I am a merchant, my-de’-seh, a good subject of His Catholic Majesty, a Creole of the Creoles, and so forth, and so forth.  Come!”

He slapped the saddle.

To have seen and heard them a little later as they moved toward the city, the Creole walking before the horse, and Frowenfeld sitting in the saddle, you might have supposed them old acquaintances.  Yet the immigrant was wondering who his companion might be.  He had not introduced himself—­seemed to think that even an immigrant might know his name without asking.  Was it Honore Grandissime?  Joseph was tempted to guess so; but the initials inscribed on the silver-mounted pommel of the fine old Spanish saddle did not bear out that conjecture.

The stranger talked freely.  The sun’s rays seemed to set all the sweetness in him a-working, and his pleasant worldly wisdom foamed up and out like fermenting honey.

By and by the way led through a broad, grassy lane where the path turned alternately to right and left among some wild acacias.  The Creole waved his hand toward one of them and said: 

“Now, Mr. Frowenfeld, you see? one man walks where he sees another’s track; that is what makes a path; but you want a man, instead of passing around this prickly bush, to lay hold of it with his naked hands and pull it up by the roots.”

“But a man armed with the truth is far from being barehanded,” replied the convalescent, and they went on, more and more interested at every step,—­one in this very raw imported material for an excellent man, the other in so striking an exponent of a unique land and people.

They came at length to the crossing of two streets, and the Creole, pausing in his speech, laid his hand upon the bridle.

Frowenfeld dismounted.

“Do we part here?” asked the Creole.  “Well, Mr. Frowenfeld, I hope to meet you soon again.”

“Indeed, I thank you, sir,” said Joseph, “and I hope we shall, although—­”

The Creole paused with a foot in the stirrup and interrupted him with a playful gesture; then as the horse stirred, he mounted and drew in the rein.