"Love-letter, dem?" quoth Sally, jumping up at the words, "La, Massa Benjamin, how you no say so before--love-letter--I tink dem was no more as shaving-paper." "Shaving-paper? Oh no, all my shaving-paper is sticking to the crown of my head, Sally; see here," stooping down to show her the patch on my skull. Sally was now all energy. "Shomp, Teemoty, Peeta, up de tree, you willains, and fetch me all dese piece of paper, dem--shomp;" and the fugitive pieces were soon secured. When Sally, honest lady, entered with the papers, the soapy scalp still adhered to my caput. She first looked in my face, being a sort of quiz in her way, and then at it. "Dat is new fashion, Massa Benjamin. When gentlemen shave demself in England now-a-day, do dey wipe de razor on crone of dem head?" "Assuredly they do," said I; "the universal custom, Sally, every man or woman, _willy nilly_, must wipe their razors, henceforth and for ever, on pieces of paper stuck on the crown of their heads. There is an act of Parliament for it." "My gracious!" "Ay, you may say that," And exit Sally Frenche to her household cares once more. I had now time to give a little attention to the scenery of the yard, where Cousin Sally reigned supreme. Three sides of the square (the house composing the fourth) were occupied by ranges of low wooden huts, containing kitchen and washing-houses, rooms for the domestic negroes, and a long open shed, fronting my window, for a stable. There was a draw-well in the centre, round which numberless fowls, turkeys, geese, ducks, guinea-birds, and pigeons, _flaffed_, and gobbled, and quacked; while several pigs were grunting and squeaking about the cookroom door, from whence a black hand, armed with an iron ladle, protruded every now and then, to give grumphy, when too intrusive, a good crack over the skull. Below the large kennip-tree already mentioned, sat Sally Frenche, enthroned in state, in a low wicker chair, with a small table beside her, on which lay an instrument of punishment, ycleped a cowskin, a long twisted thong of leather, with a short lash of whipcord at the end of it. She was nothing loth, I saw, to apply this to the shoulders of her handmaidens when they appeared behind hand, or sluggish in their obedience; and even the free brownies of her household were not always exempt from a taste thereof. Two nice showily-dressed negresses were speaking to her. They each balanced a large wooden bowl on their heads, full of handkerchiefs, gown-pieces, and beads, and appeared to be taking their instructions as to the prices they were to ask during the day's sale. They departed--when a black fellow, naked all to his trowsers, with a long clear knife in his hand, approached, and also took some orders that I could not hear, but apparently they had been the death-warrant of a poor little pig, which he immediately clapper-clawed; and, like a spider bolting with a fly, disappeared with it, squeaking like fury, into his den--the kitchen.