He took out a large plug of tobacco and with a Barlow knife, cut off a wedge-shaped piece, wiped the blade on his trousers, snapped it shut, returned both knife and tobacco to his pocket, put the wedge into his mouth and turned it about with exceeding satisfaction. "Yes, sir," he went on, "the horse trader is a man of skill, going about sharpening the wits of society. He stirs the blood of cupidity and then teaches man a lesson, enforcing the moral that the glittering is not always the gold. He is an orator and his subject is horse. Through the horse he reads human nature. He is self-confident, never tells too long a story, and people like to hear him talk. Ladies sometimes sniff at him and say that he is horsey, but when they have been sufficiently bored by the empty prattle of the refined dolt, they return to the horseman to be entertained. Bob," he added, after going to the fire-place to spit, and returning to put his feet upon the table, "there is one type of man that I should like to see hanged--the negro-trader." "Nearly always a brute," Young Master replied. "Always, Bob. And society, even in this State, holds him in contempt, yet recognizes the justice, or I should say, fails to recognize the injustice of the institution he serves. D-- me if it ain't riling!" he cried, striking the table with his heel. Master moved the ink stand till further away and leaned back in his chair. Mr. Clem continued: "The South is an exotic, living under glass. But one day the glass will be smashed and the cold air will blow in. What could be more disease-breeding than our present state of affairs, one end of the republic heating with degenerate luxury, the other end cool with self-reliant industry?" "Uncle Clem, they have turned you into a Yankee," said the young man. "By the hoofs, they have opened my eyes and if to see is to be a Yankee, then I am one." "But having seen, do you now come to sow eye-opening seeds, in fact, to scatter trouble?" "I've got as much right in this State as any man that lives in it; I carried a gun into Mexico and I wear the scar of a leaden missile." "No one questions your right, and I, for one, am warm in welcome of you. But you turned your back upon Kentucky, shifted your citizenship to another State." Mr. Clem jerked his feet off the table, went to the fire-place, spat out his tobacco, and began to walk up and down the room, with his hands behind him after the manner of Old Master.