looked out over the wharf, said abruptly, "Ha! ha! that won't do!"

Turning, I saw under the broad-brimmed hat in the clear gray eyes a
sudden sparkle of excitement as he ran hastily up the cellar-stairs.
Seeing that something unusual was afloat, I followed him quickly out on
to the wharf, where presently the cause of his movement was made plain.

Beside the wharf was a large ship, with two planks running down from her
decks to the wharf. Just at the top of the farther one from us a large
black-haired, swarthy man was brutally kicking an aged negro, who was
hastily moving downward, clinging to the hand-rail. Colored folks were
then apt to be old servants--that is to say, friends--and this was our
pensioned porter, Old Tom. I was close behind Wholesome at the door of
the counting-house. I am almost sure he said "Damnation!" At all events,
he threw down his hat, and in a moment was away up the nearer plank to
the ship's deck, followed by me. Meanwhile, however, the black, followed
by his pursuer, had reached the wharf, where the negro, stumbling and
still clinging to the rail, was seized by the man who had struck him. In
the short struggle which ensued the plank was pulled away from the
ship's side, and fell just as Wholesome was about to move down it. He
uttered an oath, caught at a loose rope which hung from a yard, tried it
to see if it was fast, went up it hand over hand a few feet, set a foot
on the bulwarks, and swung himself fiercely back across the ship, and
then, with the force thus gained, flew far in air above the wharf, and
dropping lightly on to a pile of hogs-heads, leapt without a word to the
ground, and struck out with easy power at the man he sought, who fell as
if a butcher's mallet had stunned him--fell, and lay as one dead. The
whole action would have been amazing in any man, but to see a Quaker
thus suddenly shed his false skin and come out the true man he was, was
altogether bewildering--the more so for the easy grace with which the