"Good-evening," said the man; "you don't know me, Judge Custis? No
matter, I'm Joe Johnson."

The Judge, whose tears had taken him far from things of trivial memory,
looked at the man and repeated "_Joe_ Johnson. Not Joe Johnson of
Dorchester?"

"Yes, Judge, Joe Johnson, the slave-dealer. I've bought many a nigger
from a Custis when it was impolite to sell 'em, Judge, so they let me
run' em off, and cussed me for it to the public. An' that's made me
onpopular, Judge Custis, and that's my fix to-night."

"You have been fighting, Johnson, I think," said the Judge, with
suppressed dislike.

"I've been knocked down by a nigger," said the man, with a glare of
ferocity, removing his hand from the wounded eye, as if it inflamed his
recollection of the blow to see the drops of blood drip from his beard
to the porch. "This town is too nice to abide a dealer in the
constitutional article, and so they set on me, when I was a little
jingle-brained with lush, an' while the nigger klemmed me in the peep, a
little white villain with a steeple bonnet hit me in the bread-bag with
a stone. I've come yer, Judge, to lie up in the kitchen, an' sleep warm
over Sunday, for the cops threaten to take me, if they catch me before
midnight."

"I suppose you know, Johnson, that I am a magistrate, and the proper
harborage I give to breakers of the peace is the jail."

"I'm not afraid of that limbo, Judge Custis, when I come to you. Old
Patty Cannon has done you many a good turn with Joe Johnson's gang about
election times in the upper destreeks of Somerset. Patty always said
Judge Custis was a game gentleman that returned a favor."

The Judge's countenance, an instant blank, lighted up with all a
vote-getter's smile, and he said:

"Joe, you're a terrible fellow, but dear old Aunt Patty did always take
my part! I suspect, Joe, that you have run afoul of Samson, the hired
man of Meshach Milburn, who is a boxer, though I wonder that he could
get away with your youth and size. Of course, I won't let you come to
harm. You haven't been playing your tricks on anybody's negroes, Joe?"

"No, upon my word, Judge! You see, I took a load of Egypt down the
Nanticoke to Norfolk, and shipped 'em to Orleens. Says I: 'I'll go back
Eastern Shore way, and see if there's any niggers to git.' So I tramped
it from Somers's Cove to Princess Anne, an' sluiced my gob at Kingston
and the Trappe till I felt noddy with the booze, and lay down in the
churchyard to s