Grandissime spoke with a rallying smile.

"Mr. Frowenfeld, you never make pills with eight corners eh?"

"No, sir." The apothecary smiled.

"No, you make them round; cannot you make your doctrines the same way?
My-de'-seh, you will think me impertinent; but the reason I speak is
because I wish very much that you and my cousins would not be offended
with each other. To tell you the truth, my-de'-seh, I hoped to use you
with them--pardon my frankness."

"If Louisiana had more men like you, M. Grandissime," cried the
untrained Frowenfeld, "society would be less sore to the touch."

"My-de'-seh," said the Creole, laying his hand out toward his companion
and turning his horse in such a way as to turn the other also, "do me
one favor; remember that it _is_ sore to the touch."

The animals picked their steps down the inner face of the levee and
resumed their course up the road at a walk.

"Did you see that man just turn the bend of the road, away yonder?" the
Creole asked.

"Yes."

"Did you recognize him?"

"It was--my landlord, wasn't it?"

"Yes. Did he not have a conversation with you lately, too?"

"Yes, sir; why do you ask?"

"It has had a bad effect on him. I wonder why he is out here on foot?"

The horses quickened their paces. The two friends rode along in silence.
Frowenfeld noticed his companion frequently cast an eye up along the
distant sunset shadows of the road with a new anxiety. Yet, when M.
Grandissime broke the silence it was only to say:

"I suppose you find the blemishes in our state of society can all be
attributed to one main defect, Mr. Frowenfeld?"

Frowenfeld was glad of the chance to answer:

"I have not overlooked that this society has disadvantages as well as
blemishes; it is distant from enlightened centres; it has a language and
religion different from that of the great people of which it is now
called to be a part. That it has also positive blemishes of organism--"

"Yes," interrupted the Creole, smiling at the immigrant's sudden
magnanimity, "its positive blemishes; do they all spring from one
main defect?"

"I think not. The climate has its influence, the soil has its
influence--dwellers in swamps cannot be mountaineers."

"But after all," persisted the Creole, "the greater part of our troubles
comes from--"

"Slavery," said Frowenfeld, "or rather caste."

"Exactly," said M. Grandissime.

"You surprise me, sir," said the simple apothecary. "I supposed you
were--"