The two went giggling and romping down the lawn, more like two hoydens than boy and girl, and pretty soon returned with two others. It would be hard to tell what help Sue wanted, unless it was to laugh, though she did that very well, for Bob did the entertaining. They played "Old Maid," and they put the odd queen on Bob with as frank cheating as if they were the three knaves in the pack. Then they blacked Bob's comical face with soot, and in this costume he mimicked everybody, even the great dragon, Aunt Fanny, being put up to it by her nephew; whereat Mrs. Brown looked grave, while Mr. Brown roared like a great bull alligator. How did Bob Nettles entertain that family? He was not witty; he could not tell a story without missing the point; he was a poor buffoon; he did not know a pun from a problem; and his voice in singing was hee-haw and screech. Yet he did entertain them better than noted humorists would have done. O thou immaculate and pure spirit of Fun! fathered in no classic fable, brought to sweetness by no toil of thought, thou art indeed the lowliest and sweetest of thy kind. Growing like the wild fruits and berries that the humblest may partake of thy bounty and be filled, thy nutriment is in a quick and cheerful spirit, and thy abundance in the broadest sympathies of our common nature. But this childish mummery did the mischief, carried as it was by the common vehicle of scandal in the South. Dame Brown had two maids--Ma'amselle Hortense, who enamelled that fine old face and retired to her crucifix and French novels; and Memmie, the mulatto, elderly, with a complexion like a soiled and creased straw-colored kid glove, light-blue eyes, and a prim, affected laugh like the crackle of letter paper. The morning after Bob's mimicry the latter went about muttering, as her kind do, to attract attention. "What is it, Memmie?" asked the dowager, carelessly closing and relaxing her upper lip before a hand-mirror to adjust her false teeth. "Have you and Hortense quarrelled again?" "Te-hee," crackled the negress. "Missis sich sweet dispisition me 'n' Miss Ho'tense 'bleege to be frien's. If ma'amselle hain't got the true spirit of the Methodies, hallelujah! amen! She ain't none o' them Nettleses pesterin' roun', a-blackin' of his face fo' tu 'ten' like of it's a-missus's beyoucheeful enamuel; and Mistah Waltah a-laughin' of hoss-laughs, a-sayin' it's the very spit o' ole Miss Fanny.--Whar ye been wid dat choc'lit all dis time missis a-waitin'?" breaking out on the under-servant with the breakfast tray. "Some'hin' hap'n top o' yo' head, gal: yo' mammy'll have to git ye peg t' hang yo' hat on. Yo's wuss'n Nettles, niggah as ye is." Dame Brown's first thought was of a _lettre de cachet_: she would have chopped off Bob's head without the slightest compunction. Her next was to reduce the rebellious province of Walter Brown and occupy its fairest possession, Sudie, much given to upset the tea-caddy upon occasion.