“I’ve got a gang of boys, sir,” said the long man, resuming his attack on the fire-irons, “and I jest tells ’em—­’Boys,’ says I,—­’run now! dig! put! jest when ye want to!  I never shall come to look after you!’ That’s the way I keep mine.  Let ’em know they are free to run any time, and it jest breaks up their wanting to.  More ’n all, I’ve got free papers for ’em all recorded, in case I gets keeled up any o’ these times, and they know it; and I tell ye, stranger, there an’t a fellow in our parts gets more out of his niggers than I do.  Why, my boys have been to Cincinnati, with five hundred dollars’ worth of colts, and brought me back the money, all straight, time and agin.  It stands to reason they should.  Treat ’em like dogs, and you’ll have dogs’ works and dogs’ actions.  Treat ’em like men, and you’ll have men’s works.”  And the honest drover, in his warmth, endorsed this moral sentiment by firing a perfect feu de joi at the fireplace.

“I think you’re altogether right, friend,” said Mr. Wilson; “and this boy described here is a fine fellow—­no mistake about that.  He worked for me some half-dozen years in my bagging factory, and he was my best hand, sir.  He is an ingenious fellow, too:  he invented a machine for the cleaning of hemp—­a really valuable affair; it’s gone into use in several factories.  His master holds the patent of it.”

“I’ll warrant ye,” said the drover, “holds it and makes money out of it, and then turns round and brands the boy in his right hand.  If I had a fair chance, I’d mark him, I reckon so that he’d carry it one while.”

“These yer knowin’ boys is allers aggravatin’ and sarcy,” said a coarse-looking fellow, from the other side of the room; “that’s why they gets cut up and marked so.  If they behaved themselves, they wouldn’t.”

“That is to say, the Lord made ’em men, and it’s a hard squeeze gettin ’em down into beasts,” said the drover, dryly.

“Bright niggers isn’t no kind of ’vantage to their masters,” continued the other, well entrenched, in a coarse, unconscious obtuseness, from the contempt of his opponent; “what’s the use o’ talents and them things, if you can’t get the use on ’em yourself?  Why, all the use they make on ’t is to get round you.  I’ve had one or two of these fellers, and I jest sold ’em down river.  I knew I’d got to lose ’em, first or last, if I didn’t.”

“Better send orders up to the Lord, to make you a set, and leave out their souls entirely,” said the drover.

Here the conversation was interrupted by the approach of a small one-horse buggy to the inn.  It had a genteel appearance, and a well-dressed, gentlemanly man sat on the seat, with a colored servant driving.