“Just as easy,” continued the warbling vagrant softly to himself, “an’ sociable an’ swell an’ sassy, wit’ her ‘Mer-ry Chris-mus,’ Wot d’yer t’ink, now!”

Dinner, two hours late, was being served in the Bellemeade plantation dining-room.

The dining-room and all its appurtenances spoke of an old regime that was here continued rather than suggested to the memory.  The plate was rich to the extent that its age and quaintness alone saved it from being showy; there were interesting names signed in the corners of the pictures on the walls; the viands were of the kind that bring a shine into the eyes of gourmets.  The service was swift, silent, lavish, as in the days when the waiters were assets like the plate.  The names by which the planter’s family and their visitors addressed one another were historic in the annals of two nations.  Their manners and conversation had that most difficult kind of ease—­the kind that still preserves punctilio.  The planter himself seemed to be the dynamo that generated the larger portion of the gaiety and wit.  The younger ones at the board found it more than difficult to turn back on him his guns of raillery and banter.  It is true, the young men attempted to storm his works repeatedly, incited by the hope of gaining the approbation of their fair companions; but even when they sped a well-aimed shaft, the planter forced them to feel defeat by the tremendous discomfiting thunder of the laughter with which he accompanied his retorts.  At the head of the table, serene, matronly, benevolent, reigned the mistress of the house, placing here and there the right smile, the right word, the encouraging glance.

The talk of the party was too desultory, too evanescent to follow, but at last they came to the subject of the tramp nuisance, one that had of late vexed the plantations for many miles around.  The planter seized the occasion to direct his good-natured fire of raillery at the mistress, accusing her of encouraging the plague.  “They swarm up and down the river every winter,” he said.  “They overrun New Orleans, and we catch the surplus, which is generally the worst part.  And, a day or two ago, Madame New Orleans, suddenly discovering that she can’t go shopping without brushing her skirts against great rows of the vagabonds sunning themselves on the banquettes, says to the police:  ’Catch ’em all,’ and the police catch a dozen or two, and the remaining three or four thousand overflow up and down the levee, and madame there,”—­pointing tragically with the carving-knife at her—­“feeds them.  They won’t work; they defy my overseers, and they make friends with my dogs; and you, madame, feed them before my eyes, and intimidate me when I would interfere.  Tell us, please, how many to-day did you thus incite to future laziness and depredation?”

“Six, I think,” said madame, with a reflective smile; “but you know two of them offered to work, for you heard them yourself.”

The planter’s disconcerting laugh rang out again.