“That is quite likely as he seems to regard you with a kind of awed respect, but nevertheless what I state is an absolute fact. When first he made his appearance at the office he endeavored by a brave, bold front to resume his position, but somehow his attempt was a lamentable failure. He seemed to feel that everyone was aware that there was something sham about his assumed dignity and authority and like an urchin caught masquerading in his father’s coat and hat, he has discarded the borrowed garments and relapsed into the character that nature gave him. Burton’s succeeding efforts to impress the office force and people with whom we do business with a sense of his importance have been absurdly laughable,” said Mr. Dunlap. “The secret of the child, and all that concerns our family is confined to our own people, and a few old and faithful friends, is it not?” asked Jack in an anxious, troubled voice. “Certainly, but that apparently does not lessen Burton’s sense of being garbed in stolen apparel. I can notice the dignity and culture of the white race growing less day by day in Burton’s speech and manner, just as frost-pictures on a window pane lessen each hour in the rays of the sun until naught remains but the naked and bared glass.” “What will be the end of all this, if you be correct?” cried Jack. “One by one the purloined habiliments of the superior race will disappear until finally he will stand forth stripped of the acquired veneering created by the culture of the white race, a negro. This transformation, which I think time will effect, recalls to me an example of the inordinate vanity and love of parading in borrowed plumage common to the negro race. During one of the numerous insurrections in Haiti I used to see one of the major generals of the insurgents—they had a dozen for every hundred privates—a big black fellow, strut about, puffed up with assumed importance and dignity. In less than one week after the insurrection was suppressed he was at my door selling fish. While there he began to ‘pat Juba,’ as he called it, and dance, giggling with childish glee and winding up the performance by begging me for a quarter. There you see the negro of it. Prick the balloon and when the borrowed elevating gas escapes the skin collapses immediately,” said John Dunlap, with the positiveness of a prophet. “God grant that the end be not as you surmise or let God in His mercy continue our Lucy in her present condition. It were more merciful. History gives the records of men of the negro race who did not end their lives in the manner you suggest, however,” replied Jack, extracting a crumb of comfort from the last statement. “True! my lad, true! There have been white elephants and white crows; in every forest occasionally a rare bird is found. So with the negro race, rare exceptions to the general rule do appear but so infrequently as to only accentuate the accuracy of the general rule.” * * * * *