the law is what he don’t seem to comprehend.  You’ve got to make a right good feller of the squire by sticking a fee under his vest-pocket when he don’t obsarve it.  And then, ye know, when ye make the squire a right good feller, you must keep him to the point; and when there’s any swarin’ to be done, he’s just as easily satisfied as the law.  It’s all business, you see; and thar’s just the same kind a thing in it; because profit rules principle, and puts a right smart chance o’ business into their hands without troubling their consciences.  But then, Bob ain’t got the cunnin’ in him like I-nor he can’t “rope-in on the sly,"-knock down and drag out, and just tell a whole possee to come on, as I do.  And that’s what ye don’t seem to come at, Graspum,” said Romescos, again filling his glass, and drawing a long black pipe from his pocket prepares it for a smoke.

“Now, the trouble is, you all think you can carry out these matters on your own hook; but it’s no go, and you’ll find it so.  It’s a scheme that must have larger means at the head of it; and each man’s rights must be stipulated, and paid according to his own enterprise.  But this discontent is monstrous and injurious, and if continued will prove unprofitable.  You see, fellers, you’ve no responsibility, and my position is your protection, and if you don’t get rich you must not charge the blame to me; and then just see how you live now to what you did when ranging the piny woods and catching a stray nigger here and there, what didn’t hardly pay dog money.  There’s a good deal in the sport of the thing, too; and ye know it amounts to a good deal to do the gentleman and associate with big folks, who puts the business into one’s hands, by finding out who’s got lean purses and prime niggers,” rejoined Graspum, very coolly.

“Ah, yes; that’s the way ye comes it over these haristocrats, by doin’ the modest.  Now, Graspum, ’tain’t no trouble to leak a sap like that Lorenzo, and make his friends stand the blunt after we’ve roped him into your fixings,” replied Romescos.

“No, no; not a bit of it,” resounded several voices.  “We do all the dragwork with the niggers, and Graspum gets the tin.”

“But he pays for the drink.  Come, none of this bickering; we must agree upon business, and do the thing up brown under the old system,” interrupted another.

“Hold! close that bread trap o’ yourn,” Romescos shouts at the top of his voice.  “You’re only a green croaker from the piny woods, where gophers crawl independent; you ain’t seen life on the borders of Texas.  Fellers, I can whip any man in the crowd,—­can maker the best stump speech, can bring up the best logic; and can prove that the best frightenin’ man is the best man in the nigger business.  Now, if you wants a brief sketch of this child’s history, ye can have it.”  Here Romescos entered into an interesting account of himself.  He was the descendant of a good family, living in the city of Charleston; his