When the narrator tells of seeing the McGuire Plantation, he says that "surely there was no more peaceful or beautiful scene in the world. And at such moments I had a difficult time thinking of any arguments against slavery." Most of the narrative focuses on the plantation, a well-managed place of beautiful lawns and magnificent horses. Yet the wonderful house, bountiful fields, and convivial friendliness of the slave owners and the slaves, especially Ben, cover a terrible corruption that is only fully revealed at the story's end. Even without the final revelation of the story, the narrator learns early on that the plantation 4480 Ben is successful mostly because the slave Ben runs it; the whites are almost useless as businessmen.