that the estimable, but somewhat obese and drowsy person who passed as
his wife was not a wife, ceremonially speaking. The dusky hues of her
complexion were also attributed to an infusion of African blood. There
was certainly more curl in her hair than I could have wished; and
Saccharissa's wiggy looks waged an irrepressible conflict with the
unguents which strove to reduce their crispness.

Indeed, why should I not be candid? Mellasys _per se_ was a pill, Mrs.
Mellasys was a dose, and Saccharissa a bolus, to one of my refined and
sensitive taste.

But the sugar coated them.

To marry the daughter of the great sugar-planter of Louisiana I would
have taken medicines far more unpalatable and assafoetidesque than any
thus far offered.

Meanwhile Mr. Mellasys Plickaman, cousin of my betrothed, had changed
his tactics and treated me with civility and confidence. We drank
together freely, sometimes to the point of inebriation. Indeed, unless
he put me to bed, on the evening before the day of the events I am about
to describe, I do not know how I got there.

Morning dawned on the sixth of November.

I was awakened, as usual, by the outcries of the refractory negroes
receiving their matinal stripes in the whipping-house. Feeling a little
languid and tame, I strolled down to witness the spectacle.

It stimulated me quite agreeably. The African cannot avoid being comic.