yard.  “You cherish no evil in your breast, in opposition to the command of Him who reproved the wrong of malice; but you still cling to the sale of men, which you conceive no harm, eh, Graspum?” returned the stranger, knitting his brows, as a curl of fierce hatred set upon his lip.  With an air of surprise did Graspum hesitate for a moment, and then, with a measured smile, said, “Why, Lord bless you! it would be a dishonour for a man of my celebrity in business to let a day escape without a sale; within the last ten days I have sold a thousand people, or more,—­provided you throw in the old ones!” Here he again frisked his fingers, and leaned back in his chair, as his face resumed an air of satisfaction.  The stranger interrupted as the man-seller was about to enquire the number and texture of the people he desired.  “Graspum,” said he, with significant firmness, setting his eyes upon him with intense stare,—­“I want neither your men, nor your women, nor your little children; but, have you a record of souls you have sunk in the bitterness of slavery in that box"-here the stranger paused, and pointed at the box on the table-"keep it until you knock for admittance at the gates of eternity.”  It was not until this moment that he could bring his mind, which had been absorbed in the mysteries of man-selling, to regard the stranger in any other light than that of a customer.  “Pardon me, sir!” said he, somewhat nervously, “but you speak with great familiarity.”  The stranger would not be considered intrusive.  “Then you have forgotten me, Graspum?” exclaimed the man, with an ominous laugh.  As if deeply offended at such familiarity, the man-seller shook his head rebukingly, and replied by saying he had an advantage of him not comprehensible.  “Then have you sent my dearest relatives to an untimely grave, driven me from the home of my childhood, and made a hundred wretches swim a sea of sorrow; and yet you do not know me?” Indeed, the charges here recounted would have least served to aid the recognition, for they belonged only to one case among many scores that might have been enumerated.  He shook his head in reply.  For a minute did they,—­the stranger scowling sarcastically upon his adversary (for such he now was),—­gaze upon each other, until Graspum’s eyes drooped and his face turned pale.  “I have seen you; but at this moment cannot place you,” he replied, drawing back his chair a pace.  “It were well had you never known me!” was the stranger’s rejoinder, spoken in significant accents, as he deliberately drew from beneath his cloak a revolver, which he laid on the table, warning his adversary that it were well he move cautiously.  Graspum affects not to comprehend such importune demeanor, or conjecture what has brought him hither.  Trembling in fright, and immersed in the sweat of his cowardice, he would proclaim aloud his apprehension; to which medium of salvation he makes an attempt to reach the door.  But the stranger is too quick for him:  “Calm your fears,