“‘But don’t the laws protect them?’ I asked.

“’Laws! why railroads have to be made, and have to be made the right way.  I aint afraid of the laws.  I think no more of knocking an Irishman over, sir, than I do of eating my dinner.  One is as necessary as the other.’

“Now,” continued Mr. Chapman, “if an Abolitionist sees a slave knocked over, he runs home to tell his mammy; it’s enough to bring fire and brimstone, and hail, and earthquakes on the whole country.  A man must have a black skin or his sorrows can never reach the hearts of these gentlemen.  They had better look about at home.  There is wrong enough there to make a fuss about.”

“Well,” said the Englishman, “you had both better come back to the mother country.  The beautiful words, so often quoted, of Curran, may invite you:  ’No matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery, the moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the God sink together in the dust, and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled, by the irresistible genius of universal emancipation.’”

“Thank you, sir, for your invitation,” said Mr. Chapman, “but I’ll stay in Virginia.  The old State is good enough for me.  I have been to England, and I saw some of your redeemed, regenerated, disenthralled people—­I saw features on women’s faces that haunted me afterward in my dreams.  I saw children with shrivelled, attenuated limbs, and countenances that were old in misery and vice—­such men, women, and children as Dickens and Charlotte Elizabeth tell about.  My little grand-daughter was recovering from a severe illness, not long ago, and I found her weeping in her old nurse’s arms.  ’O! grandpa,’ said she, as I inquired the cause of her distress, ’I have been reading “The Little Pin-headers."’ I wept over it too, for it was true.  No, sir; if I must see slavery, let me see it in its best form, as it exists in our Southern country.”

“You are right, sir, I fear,” said the Englishman.

“Well,” said Mr. Perkins, “I am glad I am not a slaveholder, for one reason; I am sure I should never get to heaven.  I should be knocking brains out from morning till night, that is if there are brains under all that mass of wool.  Why, they are so slow, and inactive—­I should be stumbling over them all the time; though from the specimens I have seen in your house, sir, I should say they made most agreeable servants.”

“My servants are very faithful,” said Mr. Weston, “they have had great pains taken with them.  I rarely have any complaints from the overseer.”

“Your overseers,—­that is the worst feature in slavery,” said Mr. Perkins.

“Why, sir,” said Mr. Chapman, ready for another argument, “you have your superintendents at the North—­and they can knock their people down whenever they see fit.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Mr. Perkins.  “I had forgotten that.”

“Stay a little while with us,” said Mr. Chapman, as Mr. Weston rose to lead the way to the drawing-room.  “You will not find us so bad as you think.  We may roast a negro now and then, when we have a barbecue, but that will be our way of showing you hospitality.  You must remember we are only ’poor heathenish Southerners’ according to the best received opinions of some who live with you in New England.”