“So far so good,” sighed Mr. Clayton to himself as he escaped from the station.  “Jack is a deuced clever fellow, and I ’ll have to do something more for him.  But the tug-of-war is yet to come.  I ’ve got to bribe a doctor, shut up the house for a day or two, and have all the ill-humor of two disappointed women to endure until this negro leaves town.  Well, I ’m sure my wife and Alice will back me up at any cost.  No sacrifice is too great to escape having to entertain him; of course I have no prejudice against his color,—­he can’t help that,—­but it is the principle of the thing.  If we received him it would be a concession fatal to all my views and theories.  And I am really doing him a kindness, for I ’m sure that all the world could not make Alice and her mother treat him with anything but cold politeness.  It ’ll be a great mortification to Alice, but I don’t see how else I could have got out of it.”

He boarded the first car that left the depot, and soon reached home.  The house was lighted up, and through the lace curtains of the parlor windows he could see his wife and daughter, elegantly dressed, waiting to receive their distinguished visitor.  He rang the bell impatiently, and a servant opened the door.

“The gentleman did n’t come?” asked the maid.

“No,” he said as he hung up his hat.  This brought the ladies to the door.

“He did n’t come?” they exclaimed.  “What ’s the matter?”

“I ’ll tell you,” he said.  “Mary,” this to the servant, a white girl, who stood in open-eyed curiosity, “we shan’t need you any more to-night.”

Then he went into the parlor, and, closing the door, told his story.  When he reached the point where he had discovered the color of the honorable Mr. Brown, Miss Clayton caught her breath, and was on the verge of collapse.

“That nigger,” said Mrs. Clayton indignantly, “can never set foot in this house.  But what did you do with him?”

Mr. Clayton quickly unfolded his plan, and described the disposition he had made of the Congressman.

“It ’s an awful shame,” said Mrs. Clayton.  “Just think of the trouble and expense we have gone to!  And poor Alice ’ll never get over it, for everybody knows he came to see her and that he ’s smitten with her.  But you ’ve done just right; we never would have been able to hold up our heads again if we had introduced a black man, even a Congressman, to the people that are invited here to-morrow night, as a sweetheart of Alice.  Why, she would n’t marry him if he was President of the United States and plated with gold an inch thick.  The very idea!”

“Well,” said Mr. Clayton, “then we ’we got to act quick.  Alice must wrap up her throat—­by the way, Alice, how is your throat?”

“It ’s sore,” sobbed Alice, who had been in tears almost from her father’s return, “and I don’t care if I do have diphtheria and die, no, I don’t!” and she wept on.