"'Of co'se, yo' Honor,' I said, 'when you put it on a matter of yo' health
I am helpless; that paralyzes my hospitality; I have not a word to say.
Anthony, go upstairs and get the bottle.' And we drank the judge's
whiskey! Now see the devotion and loyalty of that old negro servant, see
his shrewdness! Do you think this marsh-crane of Jack's"--

Here Jefferson threw open the door, ushering in half a dozen gentlemen,
and among them the rightful host, just returned after a week's
absence,--cutting off the major's outburst, and producing another equally
explosive:--

"Why, Jack!"

Before the two men grasp hands I must, in all justice to the major, say
that he not only had a sincere admiration for Jack's surroundings, but
also for Jack himself, and that while he had not the slightest
compunction in sharing or, for that matter, monopolizing his hospitality,
he would have been equally generous in return had it been possible for him
to revive the old days, and to afford a menage equally lavish.

It is needless for me to make a like statement for Jack. One half the
major's age, trained to practical business life from boyhood, frank,
spontaneous, every inch a man, kindly natured, and, for one so young, a
deep student, of men as well as of books, it was not to be wondered at
that not only the major but that every one else who knew him loved him.
The major really interested him enormously. He represented a type which
was new to him, and which it delighted him to study. The major's
heartiness, his magnificent disregard for _meum_ and _tuum_, his unique
and picturesque mendacity, his grandiloquent manners at times, studied, as