This dignitary was evidently hoping to lead me among the monuments, recite to me their old histories, and benefit by my consequent gratitude; he had even got so far as smiling and removing his hat when John Mayrant stopped him. The young man hailed the negro by his first name with that particular and affectionate superiority which few Northerners can understand and none can acquire, and which resembles nothing so much as the way in which you speak to your old dog who has loved you and followed you, because you have cared for him. “Not this time,” John Mayrant said. “I wish to show our relics to this gentleman myself--if he will permit me?” This last was a question put to me with a courteous formality, a formality which a few minutes more were to see smashed to smithereens. I told him that I should consider myself undeservedly privileged. “Some of these people are my people,” he said, beginning to move. The old custodian stood smiling, familiar, respectful, disappointed. “Some of ‘em my people, too, Mas’ John,” he cannily observed. I put a little silver in his hand. “Didn’t I see a box somewhere,” I said, “with something on it about the restoration of the church?” “Something on it, but nothing in it!” exclaimed Mayrant; at which moderate pleasantry the custodian broke into extreme African merriment and ambled away. “You needn’t have done it,” protested the Southerner, and I naturally claimed my stranger’s right to pay my respects in this manner. Such was our introduction, agreeable and unusual. A silence then unexpectedly ensued and the formality fell colder than ever upon us. The custodian’s departure had left us alone, looking at each other across all the unexpressed knowledge that each knew the other had. Mayrant had come impulsively back to me from his aunts, without stopping to think that we had never yet exchanged a word; both of us were now brought up short, and it was the cake that was speaking volubly in our self-conscious dumbness. It was only after this brief, deep gap of things unsaid that John Mayrant came to the surface again, and began a conversation of which, on both our parts, the first few steps were taken on the tiptoes of an archaic politeness; we trod convention like a polished French floor; you might have expected us, after such deliberate and graceful preliminaries, to dance a verbal minuet. We, however, danced something quite different, and that conversation lasted during many days, and led us, like a road, up hill and down dale to a perfect acquaintance. No, not perfect, but delightful; to the end he never spoke to me of the matter most near him, and I but honor him the more for his reticence. Of course his first remark had to be about Kings Port and me; had he understood rightly that this was my first visit? My answer was equally traditional.