"Don't trouble yourself about that, uncle," I answered evasively, being always a cautious maiden along certain lines; "most likely Mr. Laird doesn't know what you're talking about. Do you, Gordon?" I enquired, the change of name very sweet.
"Oh, yes," he promptly replied. "Yes, I've read the book—read it on the heathery hills, when I was quite a wee laddie."
"Did you ever read such a parcel of lies, sir?" demanded my uncle, fully expecting that there could be only one answer.
"I'm really not in a position to give an opinion," Gordon replied judiciously; "you see, I never saw slavery."
"Well, I have," uncle responded vigorously, "and the book's a bunch of lies. Of course, I suppose some brutes might mistreat their niggers. But it wasn't natural, sir—it wasn't to their interest to do so—a man wouldn't do it with his horse. And the niggers were enough sight happier then than they are now—they were perfectly contented, sir."
"That's the worst of it," said Gordon tersely.
"What say, sir? I don't know that I understand you."
"That was the saddest feature of it—that they were contented," repeated Gordon calmly; "that's what slavery did for them. But it seems to me, Mr. Lundy," he went on, warming a little to the argument, "it seems to me the book in question doesn't deny that most of the negroes were well used."
"It doesn't?" uncle began in a rather fiery tone; "it doesn't, doesn't it? It's the most one-sided book that was ever written—has niggers dying under the lash, and hunted with hounds, and all that sort of thing. What's that, if it isn't one-sided, sir?"
"As far as I remember, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' impressed me as decidedly fair, quite impartial," Gordon ventured, his voice very calm.