marble steps that dropped to the brick sidewalk, were the especial
property of the chocolate-colored darky.

To these duties was added the exclusive care of the master himself--a
care which gave the boy the keenest delight, and which embraced every
service from the drawing off of St. George Wilmot Temple's boots to the
shortening of that gentleman's slightly gray hair; the supervision of
his linen, clothes, and table, with such side issues as the custody of
his well-stocked cellar, to say nothing of the compounding of various
combinations, sweet, sour, and strong, the betrayal of whose secrets
would have cost the darky his place.

"Place" is the word, for Todd was not St. George's slave, but the
property of a well-born, if slightly impoverished, gentleman who lived
on the Eastern Shore, and whose chief source of income was the hiring
out to his friends and acquaintances of just such likely young darkies
as Todd--a custom common to the impecunious of those days.

As Mr. Temple, however, did not come under either one of the
above-mentioned classes--the "slightly impoverished gentleman" never
having laid eyes on him in his life--the negotiations had to be
conducted with a certain formality. Todd had therefore, on his arrival,
unpinned from the inside of his jacket a portentous document signed with
his owner's name and sealed with a red wafer, which after such
felicitous phrases as--"I have the distinguished honor," etc.--gave the
boy's age (21), weight (140 pounds), and height (5 feet 10 inches)--all
valuable data for identification in case the chattel conceived a notion
of moving further north (an unnecessary precaution in Todd's case). To
this was added the further information that the boy had been raised
under his master's heels, that he therefore knew his pedigree, and that