"How long did you live with your third master?"

"Three years, sar."

"Why, that makes you thirty-three. I thought you told me you
were only twenty-five?"

Aaron now looked first at the planter, then at the trader,
and seemed perfectly bewildered. He had forgotten the lesson
given him by Pompey relative to his age; and the planter's
circuitous questions--doubtless to find out the slave's real age--
had thrown the negro off his guard.

"I must see you back, so as to know how much you have been whipped,
before I think of buying."

Pompey, who had been standing by during the examination,
thought that his services were now required, and, stepping forth
with a degree of officiousness, said to Aaron,--

"Don't you hear de gemman tell you he wants to 'zamin you.
Cum, unharness yo'seff, ole boy, and don't be standin' dar."

Aaron was soon examined, and pronounced "sound;" yet the conflicting
statement about his age was not satisfactory.

Fortunately for Marion, she was spared the pain of undergoing
such an examination. Mr. Cardney, a teller in one of the banks,
had just been married, and wanted a maid-servant for his wife,