I said that by business appointment with the lady who had just left the coach I had gone to the next railway station northward in order to meet her. That I had come down the turnpike on a hired horse and met her and her servants pushing forward to our appointment as best they could. Now, I said, our business, a law matter, was accomplished and she was gone on on my hired horse. This span I was taking back to the stable whence I had hired them for her in the morning. The boy's graciousness shamed me through and through. "Why, certainly! He would have the coach drawn up to the house before sunrise and would keep it as long as I liked." He asked me in, but I went on to the little railway town, repeated my tarradiddle at its "hotel," and soon was asleep. ["'Tarradi'l','" said Mme. Castanado, "tha'z may be a species of paternoster, I suppose, eh?" "No," said Scipion, "I think tha'z juz' a fashion of speech that he took a drink. I do that myself, going to bed." Chester explained, but said that to admit one's untruthfulness by even a nickname implied _some_ compunction. Whereat two or three put in: "Ah! if he acknowledge' his compunction he's all right! But we are stopping the story." It went on.] XIV I was awakened, after the breakfast hour, by a tap on my door. Why it gave me consternation I could not have told; I dare say my inveracities of the day before had failed to digest. "Come in," I called, and in stepped my two fishermen. Their good mornings were pleasant, but, "Fact is," said one, "we're bothered about your client." "The lady who passed through here last evening?" "Yes, it looks as though----" "Go on while I dress. Looks as though--what?" "As though she wa'n't what you thought, or else----" I smiled aggressively: "Pardon, I _know_ that lady. 'Or else,' you say? What else? Go on." "Oh, you go on dressing. Do you know them darkies are hers?" "Hoh! Are your teeth yours? Why do you ask?" He handed me a newspaper clipping: Two Hundred Dollars Reward. Ran away from my plantation in ---- county of this State, on the ------ day of ------ the following named and described slaves; father, mother, daughter, and son: . . . A reward of fifty dollars will be paid to any person for the capture and imprisonment in any jail, of each or either of the above named. Etc. With a laugh I returned the thing and went on dressing. "It doesn't," I said aloud to my busy image in the mirror, "describe my client's darkies at all." I faced round: "Why, gentlemen, if this isn't the most astonishing----" "Ho-old on. Ho-old on! Finish your dressing. We're told it does describe two of them and we thought we'd just come and see for ourselves." "And you followed the unprotected lady?" "We followed four runaway niggers, sir! Else why did they take to the woods inside of a mile from that house where you left the coach? Oh, you're dressed; come along; time's flying!"