hands a sum of money, trifling in itself, but larger in amount than Chub had ever seen at any one time before; and telling him it was his own, rejoined the party which had already driven off.  The pedler still lingered, until a bend in the road put his company out of sight; when, driving up to the idiot, who stood with open mouth wondering at his own wealth, he opened upon him the preliminaries of trade, with a respectful address, duly proportioned to the increased finances of the boy.

“I say, now, Chub—­seeing you have the raal grit, if it ain’t axing too much, what do you think to do with all that money?  I guess you’d like to lay out a little on’t in the way of trade; and as I ain’t particular where I sell, why, the sooner I begin, I guess, the better.  You ain’t in want of nothing, eh?  No knife to cut the saplings, and pare the nails, nor nothing of no kind?  Now I has everything from—­”

Bunce threw up the lid of his box, and began to display his wares.

“There’s a knife for you, Chub Williams—­only two bits.  With that knife you could open the stone walls of any house, even twice as strong as Guy Rivers’s.  And there’s a handkerchief for your neck, Chub—­Guy’ll have to wear one of rope, my lad:  and look at the suspenders, Chub—­fit for the king; and—­”

Where the pedler would have stopped, short of the display and enumeration of all the wares in his wagon, it is not easy to say, but for an unexpected interruption.  One of the outsiders of the Colleton party, galloped back at this moment, no other indeed, than our former acquaintance, the blacky, Caesar, the fellow whose friendship for Ralph was such that he was reluctant to get him the steed upon which he left his uncle’s house in dudgeon.  Ralph had sent him back to see what detained the pedler, and to give him help in case of accident.

Caesar at once divined the cause of the pedler’s delay, as he saw the box opened, and its gaudy contents displayed before the eyes of the wondering idiot.  He was indignant.  The negro of the South has as little reverence for the Yankee pedler as his master, and Caesar was not slow to express the indignation which he felt.

“Ki!  Misser Bunce, aint you shame for try for draw de money out ob the boy pocket, wha’ massa gee um?”

“Why, Caesar, he kaint eat the money, old fellow, and he kaint wear it; and he’ll have to buy something with it, whenever he wants to use it.”

“But gee um time, Misser Bunce—­gee um time!  De money aint fair git warm in de young man pocket.  Gee um time!  Le’ um look ‘bout um, and see wha’ he want; and ef you wants to be friendly wid um, gee um somet’ing youse’f—­dat knife burn bright in he eye!  Gee um dat, and le’s be moving!  Maussa da wait!  Ef you’s a coming for trade in we country, you mus’ drop de little bizness—­’taint ’spectable in Car’lina.”

The pedler was rebuked.  He looked first at Caesar, then at Chub, and finally handed the boy the knife.