“Enough to enable him to be a pillar of the saloons,” said Talboys. “He is a lavish soul, and treats the crowd when he prospers in his profession. Once his money gave out before the crowd’s thirst. ‘Never min’, gen’lemen,’ says our friend, ‘res’ easy. I see the Bishop a-gwine up the street; I’ll git a dollar from him. Yes, wait; I won’t be gwine long.’”
“And he got the money?”
“Oh, yes. I believe he got it to buy quinine for ‘th’ ole ’ooman,’ who was down with the break-bone fever. He is like Yorick, ‘a fellow of infinite jest’—in the way of lying. He talks well, too. You ought to hear him discourse on politics. As he gets most of his revenue from the North, he is kind enough to express the friendliest sentiments. ‘I wuz opposed to the wah’s bein’’ is his standard speech, ‘an’ now I’m opposed to its continnerin’.’ For all that, he was a mild kind of Ku-Klux.”
“He did it for money, he says,” returned Louise. “The funniest thing about him is his absolute frankness after he is found out in any trick. He doesn’t seem to have any sense of shame, and will fairly chuckle in my father’s face as he is owning up to some piece of roguery.”
“You know he was in the Confederate army. Fought well, too, I’m told. What does he do when the Northerners are gone? Aiken must be a pretty bare begging ground.”
“Oh, he has a wretched little cabin out in the woods,” said Louise, “and a sweet-potato patch. He raises sweet potatoes and persimmons—”
“And pigs,” Talboys interrupted. “I saw some particularly lean swine grubbing about in the sand for snakes. They feed them on snakes, in the pine barrens, you know, which serves two purposes: kills the snakes and fills the pigs. Entertainment for man and beast, don’t you see? By the way, talking of being entertained, I know of a fine old Southern manor-house over the bridge.”
Louise shook her head incredulously. “I have lost faith in Southern manor-houses. Ever since I came South I have sought them vainly. All the way from Atlanta I risked my life, putting my head out of the car windows, to see the plantations. At every scrubby-looking little station we passed, the conductor would say, ‘Mighty nice people live heah; great deal of wealth heah before the wah!’ Then I would recklessly put my head out. I expected to see the real Southern mansion of the novelists, with enormous piazzas and Corinthian pillars and beautiful avenues; and the white-washed cabins of the negroes in the middle distance; and the planter, in a white linen suit and a wide straw hat, sitting on the piazza drinking mint juleps. Well, I don’t really think I expected the planter, but I did hope for the house. Nothing of the kind. All I saw was a moderate-sized square house, with piazzas and a flat roof, all sadly in need of paint. Now, I’m like Betsey Prig; ‘I don’t believe there’s no sich person.’ It’s a myth, like the good old Southern cooking.”
“Oh, they do exist,” said Talboys, his eyes brightening over this long speech, delivered in the softest voice in the world. “There are houses in Charleston and Beaufort and on the Lower Mississippi that suggest the novels; but, on the whole, I think the novelists have played us false. We expect to find the ruins of luxury and splendor and all that sort of thing in the South; but in point of fact there was very little luxury about Southern life. They had plenty of service, such as it was, and plenty of horses, and that was about all; their other household arrangements were painfully primitive. All the same, sha’n’t we go over the bridge?”
Louise assented, and they turned and went their way in the opposite direction.