"Mr. Clayton! Now, chile, didn't I tell you so? Do you suppose, now, you'd a let him lend you dat ar money if you hadn't liked him? But, come, chile, hurry! Dere's Mas'r Tom and dat other gen'leman coming back, and you must be down to dinner."
The company assembled at the dinner-table was not particularly enlivening. Tom Gordon, who, in the course of his morning ride, had discovered the march which his sister had stolen upon him, was more sulky and irritable than usual, though too proud to make any allusion to the subject. Nina was annoyed by the presence of Mr. Jekyl, whom her brother insisted should remain to dinner. Aunt Nesbit was uncommonly doleful, of course. Clayton, who, in mixed society, generally took the part of a listener rather than a talker, said very little; and had it not been for Carson, there's no saying whether any of the company could have spoken. Every kind of creature has its uses, and there are times when a lively, unthinking chatterbox is a perfect godsend. Those unperceiving people, who never notice the embarrassment of others, and who walk with the greatest facility into the gaps of conversation, simply because they have no perception of any difficulty there, have their hour; and Nina felt positively grateful to Mr. Carson for the continuous and cheerful rattle which had so annoyed her the day before. Carson drove a brisk talk with the lawyer about the value of property, percentage, etc.; he sympathized with Aunt Nesbit on her last-caught cold; rallied Tom on his preoccupation; complimented Nina on her improved color from her ride; and seemed on such excellent terms both with himself and everybody else, that the thing was really infectious.
"What do you call your best investments, down here,—land, eh?" he said to Mr. Jekyl.
Mr. Jekyl shook his head.
"Land deteriorates too fast. Besides, there's all the trouble and risk of overseers, and all that. I've looked this thing over pretty well, and I always invest in niggers."
"Ah!" said Mr. Carson, "you do?"
"Yes, sir, I invest in niggers; that's what I do; and I hire them out, sir,—hire them out. Why, sir, if a man has a knowledge of human nature, knows where to buy and when to buy, and watches his opportunity, he gets a better percentage on his money that way than any other. Now, that was what I was telling Mrs. Nesbit, this morning. Say, now, that you give one thousand dollars for a man,—and I always buy the best sort, that's economy,—well, and he gets—put it at the lowest figure—ten dollars a month wages, and his living. Well, you see there, that gives you a pretty handsome sum for your money. I have a good talent of buying. I generally prefer mechanics. I have got now working for me three bricklayers. I own two first-rate carpenters, and last month I bought a perfect jewel of a blacksmith. He is an uncommonly ingenious man; a fellow that will make, easy, his fifteen dollars a month; and he is the more valuable because he has been religiously brought up. Why, some of them, now, will cheat you if they can; but this fellow has been brought up in a district where they have a missionary, and a great deal of pains has been taken to form his religious principles. Now, this fellow would no more think of touching a cent of his earnings than he would of stealing right out of my pocket. I tell people about him, sometimes, when I find them opposed to religious instruction. I tell them, 'See there, now—you see how godliness is profitable to the life that now is.' You know the Scriptures, Mrs. Nesbit?"
"Yes," said Aunt Nesbit, "I always believed in religious education."
"Confound it all!" said Tom, "I don't! I don't see the use of making a set of hypocritical sneaks of them! I'd make niggers bring me my money; but, hang it all, if he came snuffling to me, pretending 'twas his duty, I'd choke him! They never think so,—they don't and they can't—and it's all hypocrisy, this religious instruction, as you call it!"
"No, it isn't," said the undiscouraged Mr. Jekyl, "not when you found it on right principles. Take them early enough, and work them right, you'll get it ground into them. Now, when they begun religious instruction, there was a great prejudice against it in our part of the country. You see they were afraid that the niggers would get uppish. Ah, but you see the missionaries are pretty careful; they put it in strong in the catechisms about the rights of the master. You see the instruction is just grounded on this, that the master stands in God's place to them."