Council_" had also been turned into money, his legal studies ceased
of themselves. When the bookshelves were empty it was the turn of the
wardrobe and the linen drawers, till one Autumn day in 1861, an emissary
of his father, who had been sent to Copenhagen to ascertain what the son
was really about, found him in his shirt, without coat or trousers,
wrapped up in his fur overcoat, sitting on the floor in his drawing-
room, where there was not so much as a chair left. Asked how it was that
things had come to such a pass with him, he replied: "It is the curse
that follows the coloured race."

A suit of clothes was redeemed for Kappers junior, and he was hurried
away as quickly as possible to the German town where his father lived,
and where the son explained to everyone who would listen that he had
been obliged to leave Copenhagen suddenly "on account of a duel with a
gentleman in a very exalted position."


VI.

My first experiences of academic friendship made me smile in after years
when I looked back on them. But my circle of acquaintances had gradually
grown so large that it was only natural new friendships should grow out
of it.

One of the members of Kappers' "literary and scientific" society, and
the one whom the West Indian had genuinely cared most for, was a young
fellow whose father was very much respected, and to whom attention was
called for that reason; he was short, a little heavy on his feet, and a
trifle indolent, had beautiful eyes, was warm-hearted and well educated,
had good abilities without being specially original, and was somewhat