“The providential trust of the South is to perpetuate the institution of domestic slavery as now existing, with freest scope for its natural development. We should at once lift ourselves intelligently to the highest moral ground, and proclaim to all the world that we hold this trust from God, and in its occupancy are prepared to stand or fall.”—_Rev. Dr. Palmer of New Orleans, 1861._ The next morning Charlton sat in his office, calculating his percentage on a transaction in which he had just acted as mediator between borrower and lender. The aspect of the figures, judging from his own, was cheerful. The office was a gloomy little den up three flights of stairs. All the furniture was second hand, and the carpet was ragged and dirty. No broom or dusting-cloth had for months molested the ancient, solitary reign of the spiders on the ceiling. A pile of cheap slate-colored boxes with labels stood against the wall opposite the stove. An iron safe served also as a dressing-table between the windows that looked out on the street; and over it hung a small rusty mirror in a mahogany frame with a dirty hair-brush attached. The library of the little room was confined to a few common books useful for immediate reference; a City Directory, a copy of the Revised Statutes, the Clerk’s Assistant, and a dozen other volumes, equally recondite. There was a knock at the door, and Charlton cried out, “Come in!” The visitor was a negro whose face was of that fuliginous hue that bespeaks an unmixed African descent. He was of medium height, square built, with the shoulders and carriage of an athlete. He seemed to be about thirty years of age. His features, though of the genuine Ethiopian type, were a refinement upon it rather than an exaggeration. The expression was bright, hilarious, intelligent; frank and open, you would add, unless you chanced to detect a certain quick oblique glance which would flash upon you now and then, and vanish before you could well realize what it meant. Across his left cheek was an ugly scar, almost deep enough to be from a cutlass wound. “Good morning, Peculiar. Take a chair.” “Not that name, if you please, Mr. Charlton,” said the negro, closing the door and looking eagerly around to see if there had been a listener. “Remember, you are to call me Jacobs.” “Ah yes, I forgot. Well, Jacobs, I am glad to see you; but you are a few minutes before the time. It isn’t yet twelve. Just step into that little closet and wait there till I call you.” The negro did as he was directed, and Charlton closed the door upon him. Five minutes after, the clock of Trinity struck twelve, and there was another knock at the door. Before we suffer it to be answered, we must go back and describe an interview that took place some seven weeks previously, in the same office, between Charlton and the negro.