le 's de same,--dat ar's
clar. And any one o' these yer drivers that comes smelling round arter
any our people, why, he's got _me_ in his way; _I'm_ the feller he's got
to set in with,--I'm the feller for yer all to come to, bredren,--I'll
stand up for yer rights,--I'll fend 'em to the last breath!"

"Why, but Sam, yer telled me, only this mornin', that you'd help this
yer Mas'r to cotch Lizy; seems to me yer talk don't hang together," said
Andy.

"I tell you now, Andy," said Sam, with awful superiority, "don't yer
be a talkin' 'bout what yer don't know nothin' on; boys like you,
Andy, means well, but they can't be spected to collusitate the great
principles of action."

Andy looked rebuked, particularly by the hard word collusitate, which
most of the youngerly members of the company seemed to consider as a
settler in the case, while Sam proceeded.

"Dat ar was _conscience_, Andy; when I thought of gwine arter Lizy, I
railly spected Mas'r was sot dat way. When I found Missis was sot the
contrar, dat ar was conscience _more yet_,--cause fellers allers gets
more by stickin' to Missis' side,--so yer see I 's persistent either
way, and sticks up to conscience, and holds on to principles. Yes,
_principles_," said Sam, giving an enthusiastic toss to a chicken's
neck,--"what's principles good for, if we isn't persistent, I wanter
know? Thar, Andy, you may have dat ar bone,--tan't picked quite clean."

Sam's audience hanging on his words with open mouth, he could not but
proceed.

"Dis yer matter 'bout persistence, feller-niggers," said Sam, with the
air of one entering into an abstruse subject, "dis yer 'sistency 's a
thing what an't seed into very clar, by most anybody. Now, yer see, when
a feller stands up for a thing one day and night, de contrar de next,
folks ses (and nat'rally enough dey ses), why he an't persistent,--hand
me dat ar bit o' corn-cake, Andy. But let's look inter it. I hope
the gen'lmen and der fair sex will scuse my usin' an or'nary sort o'
'parison. Here! I'm a trying to get top o' der hay. Wal, I puts up my
larder dis yer side; 'tan't no go;--den, cause I don't try dere no
more, but puts my larder right de contrar side, an't I persistent? I'm
persistent in wantin' to get up which ary side my larder is; don't you
see, all on yer?"

"It's the only thing ye ever was persistent in, Lord knows!" muttered
Aunt Chloe, who was getting rather restive; the merriment of the evening
being to her somewhat af