"Would you, Stephen? By George, I've a good notion to! Take the
umbrella, and go and show him the way."
Stephen did not like that.
"I was only joking, Sir," he said.
"A good joke, too! Here, you fellow! go with my man. He'll take you to a
house where you'll find friends. Excellent folks! damned
philanthropical! red-hot abolitionists! If you only had nigger-blood,
now, they'd treat you like a prince. I don't know but I'd advise you to
tell 'em you're about a quarter nigger,--they'll think ten times as much
of you!"
It was sufficiently evident that the gentleman did not love his neighbor
the Judge. There was in his tone bitter personal and political hatred.
With his own hands he spread again the soaked umbrella, and, giving it
to the reluctant Stephen, turned him away with the vagabond. Then he
shut the door, and went in. By the fire he pulled off his wet boots, and
put on the warm slippers, which the children brought him with innocent
strife to see which should be foremost. And he gave to each kisses and
toys; for he was a kind father. And sitting down to supper, with their
beaming faces around him, he thought of the beggar-boy only in
connection with the jocular spite he had indulged against his neighbor.
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