“Dat ain’t no fitten animil for de likes o’ Marse Charley, and he a-used to straddlin’ o’ de very best dat steps.” “But listen, Dick! what’s that?” “Lor’, mahster, dat ain’t nothin’ but de old m’yar and colt out d’yar in de pasture.” “Well, what in the blue-blazes makes them all stamp so to-night?” replied the old gentleman, not without a little petulance. “Dat’s jess what I say! leastwise d’yar ain’t no flies to bite ’em dis weather; but dey will do it, mahster, dey will do it. Every dog have he day, dey tell me.” Uncle Dick was strong on proverbs, though hardly happy in their application. Sometimes, in fact, just as doctors will, when they don’t know what is the matter with a patient, prescribe pills of several remedial agents, in the hope that if one shall miss another may hit, so our old hostler, carriage-driver, and dining-room servant would not scruple, when aiming at a truth, to let fly at it an aphorism compound of the head of one proverb and the tail of another. “Yes,” said my grandfather, applying Dick’s saying for him, “every dog will have his day, and I suppose that is why your Marse Charles is staying so long in Richmond.” Uncle Dick was a year or two his master’s senior, and many a “wrassle” had they had together as boys. He was, of course, a privileged character, and he now gave one of those low chuckles beyond the reach of the typographer’s art to represent to the eye. “Yes, mahster, I hears ’em say dat d’yar is some monstrous pretty gals, nebberdeless I should say young ladies, up d’yar in Richmond. Howsomever, pretty is as pretty does. Dat’s what old Dick tells ’em.” “You think Charley is in love, I presume?” Old Dick drew himself up as became one consulted on family affairs, and, dropping his head on one side, he assumed, with his knitted brows and pursed lips, an eminently judicial air. “Well, mahster, ef you axes me ’bout dat, I couldn’t ’espond pint’ly, in course; for I ain’t seen Marse Charles a-noratin’ of it and a-splanifyin’ amongst de Richmond f’yar sect; but old Dick ain’t been a-wrasslin’ and a-spyin’ ’round in dis here vain world for nigh on to a hundred year for nothin’ ef you listen to Dick; and ef you believes me, mahster, dey all of ’em most inginerally gits tetched with love onetimeornuther.” “I believe you are quite right, Dick.” “Why, Lor’ me, mahster,” began Dick, encouraged, and assuming an attitude worthy of the vast generalization he was about to utter, “I really do believe into my soul dat people is born so; dey is pint’ly,—specially young folks.” And he stopped in mid-career. “What dat? ’Pear like I hear the far gate slam. But Marse Charley, he are a keener, he are, and the gal what catches him will have to be a keener too, she will pint’ly. Marse Charley worse’n a oyster at low tide; soon as a young ’oman begins a-speculatin’ and a-gallivantin’ _round him_, he shets up, he do.” And the old man chuckled. “Howsomever, he am pint’ly a keener, ef you hear Dick—” “Listen, Dick!”