"All right, no particular harm in it. Good job for a lazy man. Hanna, you hold your own pretty well. Not as old as I expected to find you; and Guilford is a marvel of youthfulness. Don't know how I happened to come back--Just took the notion one night and I was on the road before daylight the next morning. That's the way we do things in Illinois. Pass me some more of that egg-bread. Hanged, if that ain't Kentucky up and down. Old aristocracy still on its mouldering throne, eh? Good thing for some people while it lasts, but it will tumble over pretty soon." "Clem, you musn't talk that way," Old Miss interposed. "All right, I'll shut it off; thousands of things to talk about. What's board worth in this neighborhood?" "Clem," said Old Master, leaning upon the table and looking at him, "I don't know that I ever heard of a gentleman paying board in this neighborhood." "Hah! By the hoofs, I never heard of a gentleman refusing to pay board in any neighborhood," Mr. Clem replied. "Come, how much am I expected to pay? Can't get board here, board somewhere else." "Oh, that would be a scandal," Old Miss cried. "Then let us avoid scandal. Find out what is customary and let me know. Guilford, devilish glad to see you. Wish I had come before. Bob, got a horse you want to trade for a better one? I've got a nag out there that's a beauty. Let's go and look at him?" he added, throwing down his knife and fork and shoving his chair back. "Not now, uncle Clem," the young man replied, laughing. "Uncle! That's good--like to hear it; gives me a sort of anchor. I think you and I will get along all right. Guilford told me, I don't know how long ago--got the letter somewhere--that it was your ambition to become an orator. And I can give you a few points, for I have lived for years in a hot bed of free speech, and without free speech, there is no real oratory. Round here they think that Marshall and Clay were great orators, and they were in a way, but you ought to hear Abe Lincoln." "I never heard of him," Old Master spoke up. "Oh, no; but you will. He can squeeze mirth and tears out of the heart all at once. When he arises to speak, and even before he has uttered a word, every man in the audience says to himself, 'there is my brother.' Guilford, your polished Kentuckians speak out of the book, by note, and they may work themselves into a fine heat, but this man Lincoln cries from the fullness of a soul that the Lord has given him." "Clem," said Old Master, bending a hard look upon his brother and rolling his pill of bread, "you tempt me to say that you are a blasphemer against the majestic voice of my State, sir. Never was the voice of man truer than among these graceful hills, and never did the heart of man beat warmer for freedom and justice." "Ah," Mr. Clem cried, "for freedom, did you say? For slavery, you mean." "Sir," said Old Master, "Henry Clay has spoken for the bondman." "But was he honored for it?" Mr. Clem asked. "Do you honor him for it?"