no merchant in the colonies You are but the reflection of your master’s prosperity, you rogue, and so much the greater need that you took to his interests.  If the substance is wasted, what will become of the shadow?  When I get delicate, you will sicken:  when I am a-hungered, you will be famished; when I die, you may be—­ahem—­Euclid.  I leave thee in charge with goods and chattels, house and stable, with my character in the neighborhood.  I am going to the Lust in Rust, for a mouthful of better air.  Plague and fevers!  I believe the people will continue to come into this crowded town, until it gets to be as pestilent as Rotterdam in the dog-days.  You have now come to years when a man obtains his reflection, boy, and I expect suitable care and discretion about the premises, while my back is turned.  Now, harkee, sirrah:  I am not entirely pleased with the character of thy company.  It is not altogether as respectable as becomes the confidential servant of a man of a certain station in the world.  There are thy two cousins, Brom and Kobus, who are no better than a couple of blackguards; and as for the English negro, Diomede—­he is a devil’s imp!  Thou hast the other locks at disposal, and,” drawing with visible reluctance the instrument from his pocket, “here is the key of the stable.  Not a hoof is to quit it, but to go to the pump—­and see that each animal has its food to a minute.  The devil’s roysterers! a Manhattan negro takes a Flemish gelding for a gaunt hound that is never out of breath, and away he goes, at night, scampering along the highways like a Yankee witch switching through the air on a broomstick—­but mark me, master Euclid, I have eyes in my head, as thou knowest by bitter experience!  D’ye remember, ragamuffin, the time when I saw thee, from the Hague, riding the beasts, as if the devil spurred them, along the dykes of Leyden, without remorse as without leave?”

“I alway b’rieve some make-mischief tell Masser dat time;” returned the negro sulkily, though not without doubt.

“His own eyes were the tell-tales.  If masters had no eyes, a pretty world would the negroes make of it!  I have got the measure of every black heel, on the island, registered in the big book, you see me so often looking into, especially on Sundays; and, if either of the tire-legs I have named dares to enter my grounds, let him expect to pay a visit to the city Provost.  What do the wild-cats mean?  Do they think that the geldings were bought in Holland, with charges for breaking in, shipment, insurance, freight, and risk of diseases, to have their flesh melted from their ribs like a cook’s candle?”

“Ere no’tin’ done in all ‘e island, but a color’ man do him!  He do a mischief, and he do all a work, too!  I won’er what color Masser t’ink war’ Captain Kidd?”

“Black or white, he was a rank rogue; and you see the end he came to.  I warrant you, now, that water-thief began his iniquities by riding the neighbors’ horses, at night.  His fate should be a warning to every negro in the colony.  The imps of darkness!  The English have no such scarcity of rogues at home, that they could not spare us the pirate to hang up on one of the islands, as a scarecrow to the blacks of Manhattan.”