"The tight-wads who kicked against tipping the poor colored servants now have the law on their side and can get out of it gracefully, but the people who tip because they feel that the servants have earned some little acknowledgment of their faithful services, go on tipping just as though no law had been made," said Zebedee, as he slipped some silver under the side of his plate in view of the watching darky, who pounced upon it with a practiced hand, while making a feint of removing finger bowls.
"I am going to turn you girls loose now to find your way around and seek out the wonders of Charleston. I have work to do and politicians to see."
"All right! Don't worry about us!" tweedled the twins.
"I want to get a map of the city first," said Dee, "so we can get our bearings," but Dum and I cried down this project.
"Let's find out things for ourselves and then get a map and guide book to verify us. It's lots more fun to go at it that way."
"Well, all I know is that this hotel is on Meeting Street, and on our right is Church Street and on our left King. The street under your window is Queen, and if you walk south down Meeting you come to the Battery. You can't get lost and can't get in any trouble unless you try to climb the spiked fences or get over the walls covered with broken bottles. I'll meet you at luncheon at one," and Zebedee took himself off to find out things from some of the political lights of the city.
We were left to our own devices. The sun had come out and if we had not been in the rain we would not have believed it could have come down in such torrents only a short while ago. Our dresses did not spot.
"Let's not go in any place this morning but just walk around and see from the outside. It would be low of us to do the graveyards and things without Zebedee. He loves those things and will want to see them," said Dee.
It was a strange taste for one so cheerful, but it was the truth that Mr. Tucker was especially fond of poking around musty old churches and reading epitaphs on tombstones.
We walked to St. Michael's, looking longingly through the iron gates at the quaint old tombstones, but refrained from going in for Zebedee's sake. We passed many beautiful old houses, some of them in perfect repair, brave in fresh paint, with trimmed hedges and gravel walks in their lovely old gardens that we could see by peering through the wrought-iron gates. Some of the houses, though, looked as though they had not been painted since the Revolution, and their gardens were grown up with weeds, with ragged, untrimmed hedges and neglected paths.