"Zounds, sir! do you propose to tell the secrets of my life, you yellow scoundrel? But it's true. I had a hard time bringing the madam round, and by the Lord I don't believe I'd have done it at all but for Jack Thornton. He swore he had made me tight, when, ha! ha! ha! I could drink him under the table any day in the week. The madam believed Jack, thank God! though. Well, as I was telling you, there were some monstrous exciting things in Jack's life. First, after he had settled down to live like a gentleman at Northend, old Smithers got his note for ten thousand dollars to pay some debts of honor Jack had made; and then the doggoned interest began piling up, and the black measles broke out among his negroes, and he lost nearly half of them, and we had a drought two years in succession, and the first thing I knew Jack was a bankrupt. Old Scaife Beverly, Jack's uncle, was as rich as a Jew, and had thousands of dollars in his secretary; but the old skinflint said something or other about Jack's squandering his patrimony, and Jack swore he'd see the old rascal at Davy Jones's before he'd take a cent from him; so there he was, strapped and stranded. Well, about that time there was an election for sheriff, and Jack came to me and consulted me about his running for sheriff, and I told him he couldn't do better; and the fact was, if he didn't get hold of some ready money he'd have to sell his negroes, and that was what he mortally hated, of course. So the next court day" (the colonel pronounced it cote day) "he announced himself as a candidate. I made a speech myself on the court-house green, calling upon the gentlemen of the county to support him. I was always counted a good speaker, sir, when I was in the House of Delegates." "An' ole missus she was allers a mighty good han' at writin' o' de speeches," chimed in Yellow Bob. "You bandy-legged rascal," shouted the Colonel, angrily, turning very red, "I've a great mind to kick you off this plantation, as I've had every day for forty odd years." Here Bob created a diversion. "Dat sut'ny was a good speech you made fur Marse Jack. Missis she was in Richmon' when dat speech was spoke. De folks dey holler an' whoop, an' Marse Jack Thornton he came up an' shooken old Marse's han' and says, 'Ef I'm 'lected, I'll owe it to you, Kun'l.'"