"Foggy" Raves was an anomaly. His precise position in the social scale was a very difficult thing to discover, and is still more difficult to define. His father had been an overseer, and so "Foggy" was certainly not a "gentleman." Other men of parentage similar to his knew their places, and when business made it necessary for them to visit the house of a gentleman they expected to be received in the porch if the weather were tolerable, and in the dining-room if it were not. They never dreamed of being taken into the parlor, introduced to the family, or invited to dinner. All these things were well recognized customs; the line of demarkation between "gentlemen" and "common people" was very sharply drawn indeed. The two classes lived on excellent terms with each other, but they never mixed. The gentleman was always courteous to the common people out of respect for himself; while the common people were very deferential to every gentleman as a matter of duty. Now this man Raves was not a "gentleman." That much was clear. And yet, for some inscrutable reason, his position among the people who knew him was not exactly that of a common man. He was never invited into gentlemen's houses precisely as a gentleman would have been, it is true; and yet into gentlemen's houses he very often went, and that upon invitation too. When young men happened to be keeping bachelors' establishments, either temporarily or permanently, "Foggy" was sure to be invited pretty frequently to see them. As long as there were no ladies at home "Foggy" knew himself welcome, and he had played whist and loo and bluff in many genteel parlors, into which he never thought of going when there were ladies on the plantation. He kept a fine pack of hounds too, and was clearly at the head of the "fox-hunting interest" of the county; and this was an anomaly also, as fox-hunting is an eminently aristocratic sport, in which gentlemen engage only in company with gentlemen--except in "Foggy's" case. [Illustration: "FOGGY."] Precisely what "Foggy's" business was it is difficult to say. He was constable, for one thing, and _ex-officio_ county jailor. One half the jail building was fitted up as his residence, and there he lived, a bachelor some fifty years old. He hired out horses and buggies in a small way now and then, but his earnings were principally made at "bluff" and "loo." Once or twice Colonel Barksdale and some other gentlemen had tried to oust "Foggy" from the jail, believing that his establishment there was ruining a good many of the young men, as it certainly was. Failing in this they had him indicted for gambling in a public place, but the prosecution failed, the court holding that the jailor's private rooms in the jail could not be called a public place, though all rooms in a hotel had been held public within the meaning of the statute.