“That’s your clue,” said the latter. “Just follow it, and you’ll find I’m right.”
“But how am I to follow it?” returned the merchant, “There’s any quantity of black Williams in Boston, probably, and who knows what name your man goes by now?”
“Egad,” replied Mr. Lafitte, his face darkening, “I didn’t think of that.”
“Had your man William any other name?” asked the merchant.
“Name?” scoffed the Southerner. “The black cattle change their names with their masters. This fellow would be called by mine, if he was called anything but William. I bought him and his brother with a lot of others off the estate of old Madame Roux.”
“Roux? Hold on!” exclaimed Atkins. “Roux? By George, that’s the name of the colored man Serena—that’s my sister—recommended to us, and we got him to do some white-washing and window-cleaning this spring!”
“Your sister?” interrogated Lafitte.
“Yes, my sister, Mrs. Eastman. She’s the mother of the young lady you saw last night.”
Mr. Lafitte leaned back in his chair, and shook with long, silent merriment, outward token of the raging floods of devilish joy which swelled within him.
“There you have it, dear Atkins,” he chuckled, at length. “There you have it. Follow up Roux, my boy, follow up Roux. Set Bangham to look after the dear William. My own Bangham. Whom I love,” and Mr. Lafitte ogled the captain in a manner which would have been purely ridiculous if it had not been superlatively infernal.