“He says his master is in gaol; that’s enough!  Stop, now, no more such nonsense!” rejoins the other, as the old man is about to explain.  “Not another word.”  He is good prey, made and provided by the sovereign law of the state.  Placing him between their horses, they conduct him in silence forward to the guard-house.  He is a harmless captive, in a world where democracy with babbling tongue boasts of equal justice.  “A prowler!” exclaims one of the guards-men, as, dismounting in front of the massive building, with frowning facade of stone, they disappear, leading the old man within its great doors, as the glaring gas-light reflects upon his withered features.

“Found prowling on the neck, sir!” says the right-hand guardsman, addressing himself to the captain, a portly-looking man in a military suit, who, with affected importance, casts a look of suspicion at the old man.  “Have seen you before, I think?” he enquires.

“Reckon so, mas’r; but neber in dis place,” replies Bob, in half-subdued accents.

You are nobody’s nigger, give a false account of yourself, and have no home, I hear,” interrupts the captain, at the same time ordering a clerkly-looking individual who sits at a desk near an iron railing enclosing a tribune, to make the entry in his book.

“Your name?” demands the clerk.

“Bob!”

“Without owner, or home?”

“My master’s cell was my home.”

“That won’t do, my man!” interrupts the portly-looking captain.  “Mr. Clerk” (directing himself to that functionary) “you must enter him-nobody’s nigger, without home or master.”  And as such he is entered upon that high record of a sovereign state-the guard-house calendar.  If this record were carried before the just tribunal of heaven, how foul of crime, injustice, and wrong, would its pages be found!  The faithful old man has laboured under an assumed ownership.  His badge, procured for him through the intercession of Franconia, shows him as the property of Mr. Henry Frazer.  That gentleman is many hundred miles away:  the old man, ignorant of the barbarous intricacy of the law, feels it to his sorrow.  The production of the badge, and the statement, though asserting that Miss Franconia is his friend, show a discrepancy.  His statement has no truth for guardsmen; his poor frame is yet worth something, but his oath has no value in law:  hence he must march into a cold cell, and there remain till morning.

Before that high functionary, the mayor-whose judgments the Russian Czar might blush to acknowledge or affirm,—­he is arraigned at ten o’clock on the following morning.  He has plenty of accusers,—­no one to plead the justice of his case.  A plain story he would tell, did the law and his honour grant the boon.  The fatal badge shows him the property of Mr. Henry Frazer:  Mr. Henry Frazer is nowhere to be found, and the statement that master was in prison tends to increase the suspicions against him.