take care--"

What little blood the convalescent had rushed violently to his face, and
the Creole added:

"I do not insinuate you would willingly be idle. I think I know what you
want. You want to make up your mind _now_ what you will _do_, and at
your leisure what you will _be_; eh? To be, it seems to me," he said in
summing up,--"that to be is not so necessary as to do, eh? or am
I wrong?"

"No, sir," replied Joseph, still red, "I was feeling that just now. I
will do the first thing that offers; I can dig."

The Creole shrugged and pouted.

"And be called a _dos brile_--a 'burnt-back.'"

"But"--began the immigrant, with overmuch warmth.

The other interrupted him, shaking his head slowly and smiling as he
spoke.

"Mr. Frowenfeld, it is of no use to talk; you may hold in contempt the
Creole scorn of toil--just as I do, myself, but in theory, my-de'-seh,
not too much in practice. You cannot afford to be _entirely_ different
from the community in which you live; is that not so?"

"A friend of mine," said Frowenfeld, "has told me I must 'compromise.'"

"You must get acclimated," responded the Creole; "not in body only, that
you have done; but in mind--in taste--in conversation--and in
convictions too, yes, ha, ha! They all do it--all who come. They hold
out a little while--a very little; then they open their stores on
Sunday, they import cargoes of Africans, they bribe the officials, they
smuggle goods, they have colored housekeepers. My-de'-seh, the water
must expect to take the shape of the bucket; eh?"

"One need not be water!" said the immigrant.

"Ah!" said the Creole, with another amiable shrug, and a wave of his
hand; "certainly you do not suppose that is my advice--that those things
have my approval."

Must we repeat already that Frowenfeld was abnormally young? "Why have
they not your condemnation?" cried he with an earnestness that made the
Creole's horse drop the grass from his teeth and wheel half around.

The answer came slowly and gently.

"Mr. Frowenfeld, my habit is to buy cheap and sell at a profit. My
condemnation? My-de'-seh, there is no sa-a-ale for it! it spoils the
sale of other goods my-de'-seh. It is not to condemn that you want; you
want to suc-_ceed_. Ha, ha, ha! you see I am a merchant, eh? My-de'-seh,
can _you_ afford not to succeed?"

The speaker had grown very much in earnest in the course of these few
words, and as he asked the closing question, arose, arranged his horse'