"Up, surely," answered Mrs. Harper. She looked at him with that candor and seriousness which is permitted only between old friends, and then continued: "Wilbur, I have a problem, too, and I want you to help me solve it. I want you to pardon a negro who was convicted last June in Louisville of a double murder, and who is now here in the penitentiary. He is the son of that Benjy of ours that ran off during the War, and the grandson of our old Moss. You remember them both. I never knew either of them to be guilty of a vicious act, and this boy--he's only twenty-five--killed his wife and the white man who had debauched her." The governor sat playing with his pen-knife for some time after she had finished her story. "I wish this Moss of yours had killed only the man, Pen," he observed. "That's what a white man would have done, and everybody would have applauded. But, then, a niggeh ain't a white man--never will be a white man. Pen, being gov'neh is a terribly responsible job. Now, you, for instance, ask me, one man, to set aside the findings of twelve men appointed by the people to determine this niggeh's guilt. Yet the pahdoning power was certainly given me for a purpose, and I intend to use it when I see fit. I'll take your word for it, Pen, that Moss is a good niggeh; I'll look into his case, and if you are not mistaken as to the facts, and will take him out to the Hall and keep him theh, I'll pahdon him. But I can't do it right away. In the fust place, a little punishment will do him good. In the second place, theh's politics. Politics, Pen! To pahdon that niggeh now, my dear Pen, while the events are still so fresh, would make an awful row. The press would froth at the mouth. But in a year, mind you, or eighteen months at the most, I'll turn him loose." "Oh, Wilbur, a year is such a long time!" exclaimed Mrs. Harper plaintively. "Is it, Pen,--to you--at fifty-five?" he asked whimsically. "Alas, no, not to _me_! I'm not in a cell. But I understand your position, Wilbur, and I'll submit to the inevitable. It is so much better than it might have been, and I am very, very grateful. But can I not intimate the good news to him, just to keep up his courage?" "If you do it very diplomatically, Pen, and do not mention me." Then, after she had left, he sat chuckling in his chair at the idea of asking a woman to be diplomatic under such circumstances. The warden, after reading the Governor's note, turned to a guard. "Put a coat on 1610 and bring him to the reception-room." "If you please," interposed Mrs. Harper, "I should like to see him just as he is, at his work."