But even the _law’s_ delay must finally have an end. The hour of the final settlement of the great case by the ultimate court of appeal had come at last. The judges had entered and taken their seats. Charlton, pale and haggard, sat by the side of his lawyer, Detritch. Pompilard, still masking his age, entered airy as a maiden just stepping forth into Broadway in her new spring bonnet. He wore a paletot of light gray, a choker girt by a sky-blue silk ribbon, a white vest, checked pantaloons, and silk stockings under low-cut patent-leather shoes. Taking a seat at a little semicircular table near his lawyers, he exchanged repartees with them, and then tranquilly abided his fate. Charlton looked with anguish on the composure of his antagonist. Just as the case was expected to come on, one of the judges was found to have left a certain document at home. They all retired, and a messenger was sent for the important paper. Hence a delay of an hour. Charlton could not conceal his agitation. Pompilard took up the morning journal, and read with sorrow of the death of an old friend. “Poor old Toussaint! I see he has left us,” said Pompilard. “Yes,” replied Girard, “All-Saint has gone. He was well named. He has never held up his head since he lost his wife.” “Toussaint was a gentleman, every inch of him,” said Pompilard. “He believed in the elevation of the black man, not by that process of absorption or amalgamation which some of our noodles recommend, but by his showing in his life and character that a negro can be as worthy and capable of freedom as a white man. He was for keeping the blacks socially separate from the whites, though one before the law, and teaching them to be content with the color God had given them. A brave fellow was Toussaint. I remember—that was before your day—when the yellow fever prevailed here. Maiden Lane and the lower parts of the city were almost deserted. But Toussaint used to cross the barricades every day to tend on the sick and dying, and carry them food and medicine.” “Did you know him well?” asked Girard. “Intimately, these thirty years. In his demeanor exquisitely courteous and respectful, there was never the slightest tinge of servility. You could not have known him as I did without forgetting his color and feeling honored in the companionship of a man so thoroughly generous, pious, and sincere. He would sometimes make playful allusions to his color. He seemed much amused once by my little Netty, who, when she was about three years old, said to him, after looking him steadily in the face for some time, ‘Toussaint, do you live in a black house?’ The other day, knowing he was quite ill, my wife called on him, and while by his bedside asked him if she should close a window, the light of which shone full in his face. ‘O non, madam,’ he replied, ‘car alors je serai trop noir.’”[22]