UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

or

Life among the Lowly


By Harriet Beecher Stowe




VOLUME I


CHAPTER I

In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a Man of Humanity


Late in the afternoon of a chilly day in February, two gentlemen were
sitting alone over their wine, in a well-furnished dining parlor, in
the town of P----, in Kentucky. There were no servants present, and the
gentlemen, with chairs closely approaching, seemed to be discussing some
subject with great earnestness.

For convenience sake, we have said, hitherto, two _gentlemen_. One of
the parties, however, when critically examined, did not seem, strictly
speaking, to come under the species. He was a short, thick-set man,
with coarse, commonplace features, and that swaggering air of pretension