"If I mistake not, friend Africa, you were escaping from the bonds of oppression when we took you?"
The intelligent contraband shifted a silver soup-ladle from one pocket to the other, and says he:
"Yes, mars'r colonel, I hab left my ole mars'r for de good of his bressed soul." Here the attached bondman sniffed and shook his head.
"Are you pious?" says Colonel Wobinson, much affected by such an example of humble devotion.
"Yes, mars'r I is dat," says the fond creature, wiping his brow with a silk vest from his dress-coat pocket, "and I wished to save my ole mars'r from de sin of de wicked. I know dat it was wrong for him to own niggas, and dat he was more sinful de more he done it. And I run away, Mars'r Colonel, to save dat ole man's bressum soul from any more dam."
Colonel Wobinson took off his spectacles in order that the steam from his tears might not dim them, and says he:
"I had not looked for this in one so black. Leave those silver spoons with me, friend Africa, and I will send them to my wife. Sergeant, convey this dark being, who has taught us all such a lesson of self-sacrifice, to the chaplain; and tell the chaplain to look out for his pocket."
How beautiful is it, my boy, to see in the uncouth, unlettered slave, a spirit of piety so shiningly practical. When I beheld the brutalized bondman evince such signs of religion, I am reminded of those tender and precocious little babes, who sometimes delight their mothers with exalted utterances of the like, and am inclined to believe that one knows just as much about it as the other does.
It pains me to say, my boy, that Captain Villiam Brown so far forgot himself on Wednesday, upon discovering the non-arrival of the spectacles, that he used language of an incendiary description against the beloved General of the Mackerel Brigade, thereby proving himself to be one of those crazy fanatics who are trying to ruin our distracted country. He said, my boy, that the adored General of the Mackerel Brigade was a dead-beat, and furthermore observed that he would be very sorry to take his word.