"Mr. Thorold," said I, "do you know Mr. Davis of Mississippi?"

"Davis? No, I don't know him," he said shortly.

"You have seen him?"

"Yes, I have seen him often enough; and his wife, too."

"Do you like his looks?"

"I do not."

"He looks to me like a bad man—" I said slowly. I said it to Mr. Thorold; I would hardly have made the remark to another at West Point.

"He is about bad business—" was my companion's answer. "And yet I do not know what he is about; but I distrust the man."

"Mr. Thorold," said I, beginning cautiously, "do you want to have slavery go into the territories?"