Brent tossed him up the files.
“Catch again!” said Biddulph, and up went a rattling purse, England’s subsidy.
Ham’s white teeth and genteel manners appeared at once. He grinned, and whispered thanks.
“Is that all we can do?” asked the Baronet, as we walked off.
“Yes,” said Brent, taking a nasal tone. “Ham’s a pop’lar nigger, a handy nigger, one er your raal ambitious sort. He ken cut hair, fry a beefsteak, and play on the fiddle like a minstril. He ken shoe a mule, drive a team, do a little j’iner work, and make stompers. Yes, Biddulph, trust him to gnaw himself free with that Connecticut rat-tail.”
“Ham against Japhet; I hope he’ll win.”
“Now,” said Brent, “that we’ve put in action Christ’s Golden Rule, Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, and All-the-wisdom’s Preamble to the Constitution, we can sleep the sleep of welldoers, if we have two man-stealers—and one the brother of a murderer—only papered off from us.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
FULANO’S BLOOD-STAIN.
“What a horse beyond all horses yours is!” said Biddulph to me next morning, as we rode along cheerily through the fresh, frosty air of December. “I think, when your continent gets to its finality in horse-flesh, you will beat our island.”