"'I am sorry I haven't a ke-ard, suh. My name is Yancey, suh--Thomas Morton Yancey, of Green Briar County, Virginia. You don't know that po'tion of my State, suh. It's God's own country. Great changes have taken place, suh--not only in our section of the State, but in our people. I myself am not what I appear, suh, as you shall learn later. The old rulin' classes are goin' to the wall; it is the po' white trash and the negroes, suh, that are comin' to the front. Pretty soon we shall have to ask their permission to live on the earth. Now, to give you an idea, suh, of what these changes mean, and how stealthily they are creepin' in among us, I want to tell you, suh, somethin' connected with my own life, for ev'ry word of which I can vouch. Thank you, I will take a drop of bitters in mine,' and he held his glass out to the barkeeper. 'I don't want to detain you, suh, and I don't want to bore you, but it's the first time for some months that I have had the pleasure of meetin' a Northern gentleman, and I feel it my duty, suh, to give you somethin' of the inside history of the South, and to let you know, suh, what we Southern people suffered immediately after the war, and are still sufferin'. "'As for myself, suh, I came out penniless, my estates practically confiscated, owin' to some very peremptory proceedin's which took place immediately after the surrender. I, of course, suh, like many other gentlemen of my standin', found it necessary to go to work, the first stroke of work that any of my blood, suh, had ever done since my ancestors settled that po'tion of the State, suh. A crisis, suh, had arrived in my life, and I proposed to meet it. Question was, what could I do? I hadn't studied law and so I could not be a lawyer, and I hadn't taken any course in medicine and so I couldn't be a doctor; and I want to tell you, suh, that the politics of my State were not runnin' in a groove by which I could be elected to any public office. After lookin' over the ground I decided to open a livery stable. Don't start, suh. I know it will shock you when I tell you that a Yancey had fallen so low, but you must know, suh, that my wife hadn't had a new dress in fo' years and my children were pretty nigh barefoot. Well, suh, a circus company had passed through our way and left two spavined horses in Judge Caldwell's lot and a bo'rd bill of fo' dollars and ninety-two cents unpaid. I took my note for a hundred dollars and Judge Caldwell endorsed it, and I sold it for the amount of the bo'rd bill, and I got the two horses. Then I made another note for a similar amount and secured it by a mortgage on the horses, and got a fo'seated wagon and two sets of second-hand harness. Then I put a sign over my barn do'--"Thomas Martin Yancey, Livery & Sale Stable." "'About a week after I had started Colonel Moseley's black Sam--free then, of co'se, suh--come down to my place and said, "Major Yancey, there's goin' to be a ball over to Barboursville----"