“Yes, sir; I have heard of him.  His doctrine is from the ‘Wicked Bible’; he omits the ‘not.’  Good morning.”  And General Keith bowed himself out.

When the guests arrived, Mr. Wickersham admitted to himself that they were a strange lot of “assorted statesmen.”  He was rather relieved that the General had not remained.  When he looked about the table that evening, after the juleps were handed around and the champagne had followed, he was still more glad.  The set of old Richard’s head and the tilt of his nose were enough to face.  An old and pampered hound in the presence of a pack of puppies could not have been more disdainful.

The preacher he had mentioned, Mr. J. Quincy Plume, was one of the youngest members of the party and one of the most striking—­certainly one of the most convivial and least abashed.  Mr. Plume had, to use his own expression, “plucked a feather from many wings, and bathed his glistening pinions in the iridescent light of many orbs.”  He had been “something of a doctor”; then had become a preacher—­to quote him again, “not exactly of the gospel as it was understood by mossbacked theologians, of ‘a creed outworn,’” but rather the “gospel of the new dispensation, of the new brotherhood—­the gospel of liberty, equality, fraternity.”  Now he had found his true vocation, that of statesmanship, where he could practise what he had preached; could “bask in the light of the effulgent sun of progress, and, shod with the sandals of Mercury, soar into a higher empyrean than he had yet attained.”  All of which, being translated, meant that Mr. Plume, having failed in several professions, was bent now on elevating himself by the votes of the ignorant followers whom he was cajoling into taking him as a leader.

Mr. Wickersham had had some dealing with him and had found him capable and ready for any job.  When he had been in the house an hour Mr. Wickersham was delighted with him, and mentally decided to secure him for his agent.  When he had been there a day Mr. Wickersham mentally questioned whether he had not better drop him out of his schemes altogether.

One curious thing was that each guest secretly warned him against all the others.

The prices were much higher than Mr. Wickersham had expected.  But they were subject to scaling.

“Well, Richard, what do you think of the gentlemen?” asked Mr. Wickersham of the old servant, much amused at his disdain.

“What gent’mens?”

“Why, our guests.”  He used the possessive that the General used.

“Does you call dem ‘gent’mens?’” demanded the old servant, fixing his eyes on him.

“Well, no; I don’t think I do—­all of them.”

“Nor, suh; dee ain’t gent’mens; dee’s scalawags!” said Richard, with contempt.  “I been livin’ heah ‘bout sixty years, I reckon, an’ I never seen nobody like dem eat at de table an’ sleep in de beds in dis house befo’.”

When the statesmen were gone and General Keith had returned, old Richard gave Mr. Wickersham an exhibition of the manner in which a gentleman should be treated.