"I said you couldn't take'em along and hire em. "I'd like to know the reason for that. I--" "Law. Law's against it." Griffith drew his hand across his face as if he had lost his power to think. "You can't take _any_ of'em to Indiana, I tell you," said the attorney insistently, and Griffith seemed dazed. Then he began again: "Can't take them!" he exclaimed, in utter dismay. "That's what I said twice--can't take them--none of them." "But I shall pay them wages! Surely I can take my own choice of servants into my own household if they are free and I pay them wages I Surely--" "Surely you _cannot_, I tell you," said the attorney, and added dryly, "not unless you are particularly anxious to run up against the law pretty hard." He reached up and took down a leather-bound volume. He turned the leaves slowly, and Griffith and Katherine looked at each other in dismay. "There it is in black and white. Not a mere law, either--sometimes you can evade a law, if you are willing to risk it; but from the way you both feel about leaving those two free niggers in Virginia, I guess you won't be very good subjects for that sort of thing--thirteenth article of the constitution of the State itself." He drew a pencil mark along one side of the paragraph as Griffith read. "Oh! you'll find these free states have got mighty little use for niggers. Came here from one of'em myself. Free or not free, they don't want 'em. You see," he said, slowly drawing a line down the other side of the page, "they prohibit you from giving employment to one! Don't propose to have free nigger competition with their white labor. Can't blame 'em." He shrugged his shoulders. Griffith began to protest. "But I have read--I thought--" "Of course you thought--and you've read a lot of spread-eagle stuff, I don't doubt. Talk is one of the cheapest commodities in this world; but when it comes to acts--" he chuckled cynically, "s'pose you had an idea that the border States were just holding out their arms to catch and shield and nurture and feed with a gold spoon every nigger you Southern men were fools enough to set free; but the cold fact is they won't even let you bring them over and pay 'em to work for you! That is one of the charming little differences between theory and practice. They've got the theory and you've had the practice of looking after the niggers! Your end is a damned sight more difficult than theirs, as you'll discover, if you haven't already. Excuse me, I forgot you were a preacher. You don't look much like one." Griffith smiled and bowed. Katherine had gone to the front window, where Mammy and the baby were enjoying the unaccustomed sights of the street. Griffith and the lawyer moved toward them.