“I tell you what I want to do, Mr. Cohistine.  I want to puhchase two saddle hawses, a good one foh myself, and not a bad one foh my sehvant.  Unfohtunately, my boy took sick on the way, and I had to send him home on the Mississippi steamah.  That means, I must get me a new sehvant, able to ride well and handle hawses.  I pehsume it will be hahd to find a cullahed boy, a niggro, in these pahts, so I must take whateveh can be got that will suit.”

“Not at all, Colonel,” replied Coristine, with effusion.  “I think I can get you a negro who is out of place, is a good rider, and, I imagine, a good judge of horses.  If you like, I’ll go after him at once and tell him to report to you to-morrow morning.”

“My deah suh, you are altogethah too kind.”

“Not a bit of it; when will I tell him to call upon you?”

“Would seven o’clock be too eahly?  Plantation and ahmy life have made me a light sleepah, so that I am up befoh the genehality of hotel guests.”

“The very time.  Excuse me for running away, I want to bag my man.”

So Coristine left the colonel to parade the piazza with Wilkinson, and resought the barber shop.

The shop was closed, but a light still burned within.  Coristine knocked, and Tobias opened the door.  “You’re the very man I want,” cried the lawyer.

“Anything done gwine wrong, boss?” asked Mr. Maguffin.

The lawyer explained the circumstances to him at length, eulogized Colonel Morton, and told the negro to make his best appearance at the hotel, sharp at seven next morning.

“Do yoh say the gemman’ll gib me thirty dollars a munf and cloves ter boot, and me ridin’ behine him all ober the roads on hawseback!” asked Tobias.

“Yes, I think I can promise those terms,” replied the legal go-between.

“Then, yoh say foh me, if he’s please foh ter hab me Maguffin, not Tobias, but Maguffin is his man, and I kin pick him out two lubby hawses, cheap as a po-ul-caht, and I cahn’t say no cheapah.  My respecs and humble expreshun ob gracious apprecherashun ter yoh, Mistah Kerosene.”

The lawyer rushed back to the veranda, and found the colonel and Wilks still in conversation, and, wonder of wonder, Wilkinson was actually smoking a cigar, which he occasionally inserted between his lips, and then held away at arm’s length, while he puffed out the smoke in a thin blue cloud.  Wisely, he did not express astonishment at this unheard of feat of his friend, but informed the colonel that he had seen the coloured man, whose name was Tobias, but preferred to be called Maguffin, that he was willing to engage for thirty dollars a month and his clothes, and that he could put his new master in the way of getting two suitable horses.  “I think, Colonel, you can reckon on his being here punctually at seven to-morrow.”

“I shall nevah cease, Mr. Cohistine, to be sensible of yoah great kindness to an entiah styangah, suh.  Oblige me by smoking anothah cigah, if they are to yoah liking.”