"Well, the men have been saying or doing something then."

"N-no; why, what an inquisitor it is!"

"'N-no.' You don't say that full and plain, Abram. Something _has_ been
going wrong with the men. Now what is it? Come, out with it."

"Well, mother, if you _will_ know, you will, I suppose; and, as you
never get tired of the story, I'll go over the whole tale.

"So long as I was Mr. Surrey's office-boy, to make his fires, and sweep
and dust, and keep things in order, the men were all good enough to me
after their fashion; and if some of them growled because they thought he
favored me, Mr. Given, or some one said, 'O, you know his mother was a
servant of Mrs. Surrey for no end of years, and of course Mr. Surrey has
a kind of interest in him'; and that put everything straight again.

"Well! you know how good Mr. Willie has been to me ever since we were
little boys in the same house,--he in the parlor and I in the kitchen;
the books he's given me, and the chances he's made me, and the way he's
put me in of learning and knowing. And he's been twice as kind to me
ever since I refused that offer of his."

"Yes, I know, but tell me about it again."

"Well, Mr. Surrey sent me up to the house one day, just while Mr. Willie
was at home from college, and he stopped me and had a talk with me, and
asked me in his pleasant way, not as if I were a 'nigger,' but just as
he'd talk to one of his mates, ever so many questions about myself and
my studies and my plans; and I told him what I wanted,--how hard you