"I would rather have any respectable man of tolerable intellect," insisted the Doctor. "I tell you that I know that type perfectly. I know what he is as well as if I had been acquainted with him for twenty years. He is what we southerners, in our barbarous local vanity, are accustomed to call a southern gentleman. He is on the model of the sugar-planters of St. Dominic Parish. He needs somebody to care for him. Let me tell you a story. When I was on a mineralogical expedition in North Carolina some years ago, I happened to be out late at night looking for lodgings. I was approaching one of those cross-road groggeries which they call a tavern down there, when I met a most curious couple. It was a man and a goose. The man was drunk, and the goose was sober. The man was staggering, and the goose was waddling perfectly straight. Every few steps it halted, looked back and quacked, as if to say, Come along. The moon was shining, and I could see the whole thing plainly. I was obliged to put up for the night in the groggery, and there I got an explanation of the comedy. It seems that this goose was a pet, and had taken an unaccountable affection to its owner, who was a wretched drunkard of a cracker. The man came nearly every night to the groggery, got drunk as regularly as he came, and generally went to sleep on one of the benches. About midnight the goose would appear and cackle for him. The bar-keeper would shake up the drunkard and say, 'Here! your goose has come for you.' As soon as the brute could get his legs he would start homeward, guided by his more intelligent companion. If the man fell down and couldn't get up, the goose would remain by him and squawk vociferously for assistance.--Now, sir, there was hardly a sugar-planter, hardly a southern gentleman, in St. Dominic Parish, who didn't need some such guardian. Often and often, as I have seen them swilling wine and brandy at each other's tables, I have charitably wished that I could say to this one and that one, Sir, your goose has come for you." "But you never have seen the Lieutenant-Colonel so badly off," answered Colburne, after a short meditation. "Why no--not precisely," admitted the Doctor. "But I know his type," he presently added with an obstinacy which Miss Ravenel secretly thought very unjust. She thought it best to direct her spirit of censure in another direction. "Papa," said she, "what a countryfied habit you have of telling stories!" "Don't criticise, my dear," answers papa. "I am a high toned southern gentleman, and always knock people on the head who criticise me."