vernment were fully explained.

"I belongs to de gen'elmen dat's here tendin' to de De Willoughby claim,
sah," he would say. "Co'se, sah, you've heern 'bout it up to de Capitol.
I'se yere waitin' on Marse Rupert De Willoughby, but co'se he don' live
yere--till ye gets his claim through--like he do in de ole family mansh'n
at Delisleville--an' my time hangs heavy on my han's, cos I got so much
ledger--so I comes out like dish yer--an' takes a odd job now an' agen."

It was not long before he was known as the De Willoughby claimant, and
loiterers were fond of drawing him out on the subject of the "gol'
mines." He gathered a large amount of information on the subjects of
claims and the rapid methods of working them. He used to come to Tom
sometimes, hot and excited with his struggles to comprehend detail. "What
all dish yer 'bout Marse Rupert's granpa'n' bein' destructively disloyal?
Dar warn't no disloyal 'bout it. Ef dar was a fault to be foun' with the
old Judge it was dat he was mos' too loyal. He couldn' hol' in, an' he
qu'ol with mos' ev'y gen'elman he talk to. He pass shots with one or two
he had a disagreement with. He pass shots with 'em. How's de Guv'ment
gwine call a gen'elman 'destructively disloyal' when he ready any minit
to pass shots with his bes' fren's, ef dey don' 'gree with his
pol'tics--an' his pol'tics is on de side er Marse Ab'am Lincoln an' de
Yankees?"

The phrase "constructively disloyal" rankled in his soul. He argued about
it upon every possible occasion, and felt that if the accusation could be
disproved the De Willoughby case would be triumphantly concluded, which
was in a large measure true.

"I steddies 'bout dat thing day an' night," he said to Sheba. "Seems like
dar oughter be someone to tes'ify. Ef I had de money to travel back to
Delisleville, I'd go an' try to hunt someone up."

He was seated upon the steps of a Government building one afternoon,
discussing his favourite subject with some of his coloured friends. He
had been unusually eloquent, and had worked himself up to a peroration,
when he suddenly ceased speaking and stared straight across the street to
the opposite side of the pavement, in such absorption that he forgot to
close his mouth.

He was gazing at an elderly gentleman with a hook nose and the dashing
hat of the broad brim, which was regarded as being almost as much an
insignia of the South as the bonnie blue flag itself.

Uncle Matt got up and shuffled across the