“My friend,” returns the vender, curtly, having glanced over the paper, “save me and yourself any further annoyance.  I could have told you how far the property was warranted, before I read the paper; and I remember making some very particular remarks when selling that item in the invoice.  A nigger’s intelligence is often a mere item of consideration in the amount he brings under the hammer; but we never warrant the exercise or extension of it.  Po’h, man! we might just as well attempt to warrant a nigger’s stealing, lying, cunning, and all such ‘cheating master’ propensities.  Some of them are considered qualities of much value-especially by poor planters.  Warrant nigger property not to run away, eh!  Oh! nothing could be worse in our business.”

“A minute, squire!” interrupts the appealing Mr. M’Fadden, just as the other is about to add a suspending clause to his remarks.  “If warrantin nigger proper sound in all partiklers is’nt warrantin it not to run away, I’m no deacon!  When a nigger’s got run-away in him he ain’t sound property, no way ye can fix it.  Ye may turn all the law and philosophy yer mind to over in yer head, but it won’t cum common sense to me, that ye warrant a nigger’s body part, and let the head part go unwarranted.  When ye sells a critter like that, ye sells all his deviltry; and when ye warrants one ye warrants t’other; that’s the square rule o’ my law and philosophy!”

The vender puffs his weed very coolly the while; and then, calling a negro servant, orders a chair upon which to comfortably place his feet.  “Are you through, my friend?” he enquires, laconically; and being answered in the affirmative, proceeds-"I fear your philosophy is common philosophy-not the philosophy upon which nigger law is founded.  You don’t comprehend, my valued friend, that when we insert that negro property will be warranted, we don’t include the thinking part; and, of course, running away belongs to that!” he would inform all those curious on such matters.  Having given this opinion for the benefit of M’Fadden, and the rest of mankind interested in slavery, he rises from his seat, elongates himself into a consequential posi-tion, and stands biting his lips, and dangling his watch chain with the fingers of his left hand.

“Take ye up, there,” the other suddenly interrupts, as if he has drawn the point from his antagonist, and is prepared to sustain the principle, having brought to his aid new ideas from the deepest recesses of his logical mind.  Grasping the vender firmly by the arm, he looks him in the face, and reminds him that the runaway part of niggers belongs to the heels, and not to the head.

The vender exhibits some discomfiture, and, at the same time, a decided unwillingness to become a disciple of such philosophy.  Nor is he pleased with the familiarity of his importuning customer, whose arm he rejects with a repulsive air.

There has evidently become a very nice and serious question, of which Mr. M’Fadden is inclined to take a commonsense view.  His opponent, however, will not deviate from the strictest usages of business.  Business mentioned the mental qualities of the property, but warranted only the physical,—­hence the curious perplexity.