A year before that first interview, Charlton had, in some accidental way, been associated with a well-known antislavery counsel, in a case in which certain agents of the law for the rendition of fugitive slaves had been successfully foiled. Though Charlton’s services had been unessential and purely mercenary, he had shared in the victor’s fame; and the grateful colored men who employed him carried off the illusion that he was a powerful friend of the slave. And so when Mr. Peculiar, _alias_ Mr. Jacobs, found himself in New York, a fugitive from bondage, he was recommended, if he had any little misgivings as to his immunity from persecution and seizure, to apply to Mr. Charlton as to a fountain of legal profundity and philanthropic expansiveness. Greater men than our colored brethren have jumped to conclusions equally far from the truth in regard not only to lawyers, but military generals. Charlton’s primary investigations, in his first interview with Peek, had reference to the amount of funds that the negro could raise through his own credit and that of his friends. This amount the lawyer found to be small; and he was about to express his dissatisfaction in emphatic terms, when a new consideration withheld him. Affecting that ruling passion of universal benevolence which the fond imagination of his colored client had attributed to him, he pondered a moment, then spoke as follows: “You tell me, Jacobs, you are in the delicate position of a fugitive slave. I love the slave. Am I not a friend and a brother, and all that? But if you expect me to serve you, you must be entirely frank,—disguise nothing,—disclose to me your real history, name, and situation,—make a clean breast of it, in short.” “That I will do, sir. I know, if I trust a lawyer at all, I ought to trust him wholly.” There was nothing in the negro’s language to indicate the traditional slave of the stage and the novel, who always says “Massa,” and speaks a gibberish indicated to the eye by a cheap misspelling of words. A listener who had not seen him would have supposed it was an educated white gentleman who was speaking; for even in the tone of his voice there was an absence of the African peculiarity. “My friends tell me I may trust you, sir,” said Jacobs, advancing and looking Charlton square in the face. Charlton must have blenched for an instant, for the negro, as a slight but significant compression of the lip seemed to portend, drew back from confidence. “Can I trust you?” he continued, as if he were putting the question as much to himself as to Charlton. There was a pause. Charlton took from his drawer a letter, which he handed to the negro, with the remark, “You know how to read, I suppose.” Without replying. Peek took the letter and glanced over it,—a letter of thanks from a committee of colored citizens in return for Charlton’s services in the case already alluded to. Peek was reassured by this document. He returned it, and said, “I will trust you, Mr. Charlton.”