“It is the flag of the Union that you carry, and you are the National Guards of South Carolina, too,” replied Elly. “Well, it _is cutting_ to the old rebel and slave-hunter!” he continued. His occupation is gone, gone forever; and I don’t suppose he or his trained blood-hounds take kindly to such cheap game as possoms. There is a mighty sight of brag and bluster about these southern whites, though they’ll dodge quick enough at sight of a United States musket with a Yankee behind it. They hav’n’t forgotten their whipping yet.” “Yes, but they’ll dodge back again just as quick, when the musket and Yankee soldier are withdrawn, and they are fast forgetting the past; and this centennial year and celebration are unwelcome reminders of it which they would like to resent.” “Well, yes, I reckon so. You see the mention of the rebellion as one of the hard strains which the Union has survived cannot well be avoided, and so the “red rag,” as you call it, is in their faces pretty often if they take a newspaper, or steal the reading of one. There are only five white men, ‘gentlemen,’ who call upon me regularly to get the reading of my papers, free of course, and call me a ‘nigger.’ They don’t take a single paper themselves, nor buy one, nor say ‘thank ye’ for mine; nor always think to ask if I have read it myself. “Ah, there she comes! right on time;” and Elly closed and pocketed his gold watch, while the train approached the platform. “You’ll see, Jesse? Please get that name out of him, and I’ll put the rascal through for threats; though I’m not afraid of him. Good day,” and with the grace of a courtier he waved adieu to his friend, as the train moved away. He was soon comfortably seated, and gazing out at the window. He was very well dressed, in strong contrast with a large majority of his race in the southern States. His tall shining hat lay beside him upon the crimson plush cushion of the seat, leaving his crisp and glossy frizzed hair the only covering of his shapely head. Among the occupants of the car were many “northerners” returning from winter residences in Florida. “We talk of the receding foreheads and projecting jaws of the African,” said a lady sitting opposite, in a subdued tone to her masculine companion, “but just imagine those two men with hair and complexions exchanged,” indicating Elly and a man in the seat immediately in front of him, who was in a double sense, a fair specimen of southern “poor white trash.” “‘Now, deil-ma-care about their jaws, The senseless, gawky million,’ “As Burns says, ‘I’ll cock my nose aboon them a’,’