is time,
immense; and the agents of the planters--factor is the generic
term--made large fortunes in buying and selling at a merely nominal
rate of percentage. The southern planter of _ante-bellum_ days was
a man of ease and luxury, careless of business and free to excess with
money; and relations between him and his agent were entirely unique.

He had the same factor for years, drawing when he pleased for any
amount, keeping open books. When his crop came in, it was shipped to
the factor, the money retained--subject to draft--or invested. But it
was by no means rare, when reckoning day came, for the advance drafts
to have left the planter in debt his whole crop to the factor. In that
case it used to cost him a trip to Europe, or a summer at Saratoga
only; and he stayed on his plantation and did not cry over the spilt
milk, however loudly his ladies may have wailed for the missing
_creme-de-la-creme_ of Virginia springs.

The morning after arrival we at last saw "the house;" which, far from
being an imposing edifice, was a dingy, small office, just off the
Levee, with the dingier sign of "Long, Staple & Middling" over the
door. There were a few stalwart negroes basking in the sun about the
entrance, sleeping comfortably in the white glare, or showing glancing
ivories, in broad grins--each one keeping his shining cotton hook in
full view, like a badge of office. Within was a perfect steam of
business, and Staple _pere_ was studying a huge ledger through a pair
of heavy gold spectacles--popping orders like fire-crackers, at half a
dozen attentive clerks. Long, the senior partner, was in Virginia--and
Middling, the junior, was hardly more than an expert foreman of the
establishment.

"Happy, indeed, to meet you, sir!--93 of Red River lot, Mr. Edds--Heard
of you frequently--Terribly busy time these, sir, partner away--13,094
middlins, for diamond B at 16-1/3, Adams--. We dine at seven, you
remember Styles--Don't be in a hurry, sir!--1,642 A.B., page 684,
Carter--Good day--See you at seven."

And it was only over the perfect claret, at the emphasized hour, that
we discovered Mr. Staple to be a man of fine mind and extensive culture,
a hearty sympathizer in the rebellion--into which he would have
thrown his last dollar--and one of the most successful men on the
Levee. Long, his senior partner, was a western man of hard, keen
business sense, who had come to New Orleans fifty years before, a
barefooted deck-hand on an Ohio