"What will you have, sir?" asked the waiter. "Some hot biscuit, please." "They a'n't no hot biscuits, sir." "Well some hot rolls then, or hot bread of some sort. Cold bread for breakfast is an abomination." "They a'n't no hot bread in the house, sir. We never keep none. Hot bread a'n't healthy, sir." "You impertinent----" "My dear Billy," said Mr. Bob, "pray keep your temper. 'Impertinent' is not the word you wish to use. The _man_ can not well be impertinent. He is a trifle impudent, I admit, but we can afford to overlook the impudence of his remark for the sake of the philological interest it has. Waiter, you ought to know, inasmuch as you have been brought up in a land of free schools, that two negatives, in English, destroy each other, and are equivalent to an affirmative; but the matter in which I am most interested just now is your remark that hot bread is not _healthy_. Your statement is perfectly true, and it would have been equally true if you had omitted the qualifying adjective 'hot.' No bread can be 'healthy,' because health and disease are not attributes or conditions of inanimate things. You probably meant, however, that hot bread is not wholesome, a point on which my friend here, who eats hot bread every day of his life, would naturally take issue with you. Please bring us some buttered toast." The waiter went away bewildered--questioning the sanity of Mr. Bob in all probability; a questioning in which Billy was half inclined to join him. "What on earth do you mean, Bob, by talking in that way to a waiter who don't know the meaning of one word in five that you use?" "Well, I meant for one thing to keep you from losing your temper and so spoiling your digestion. Human motives are complicated affairs, and hence I am by no means sure that I can further unravel my purpose in this case." "Return we to our muttons, then," said Billy; "I'll finish the business that brought me here, which is only to be present at the taking of a short deposition, by two or three o'clock. While I'm at it you can get your traps together, send your trunk to the depot, and get back here to dinner by four. Then we must get through the rest of the time the best way we can, and at eleven we'll be off. I'm crazy to see you with Phil once." "Phil, who is he?" "Oh! Phil is a character--a colored one. I want to see how his 'dialect' will affect you. I'm half afraid you'll go crazy, though, under it." "Tell me--" "No, I won't describe Phil, because I can't, and no more can anybody else. Phil must be seen to be appreciated. But come, I'm off for the notary's, and you must get you gone too, for you mustn't be late at dinner--that's poz." With this the two young men separated, the Virginian lawyer to attend to the taking of some depositions, and his cousin to surrender his lodgings, pack his trunk, and make such other arrangements as were necessary for his journey.