sir?"

"Oh, yes!" said the captain.

"Let's have him down to breakfast with us for the nonce!" cried Kit.
"Here, Palmleaf, set an extra plate, and bring another cup of coffee."

"And see that you keep out of sight," laughed the captain: "the
Huskies don't much like the looks of you."

"I tink I'se look as well as dey do, sar!" exclaimed the indignant
cook.

"So do I, Palmleaf," said Raed; "but then opinions differ, you know.
These Esquimaux are nothing but savages."

"Dey're berry ill-mannered fellars, sar, to make de best of dem. I
wouldn't hev 'em roun', sar, stinkin' up de ship."

"I don't see that they smell much worse than a pack of niggers,"
remarked Wade provokingly; at which the darky went back to the galley
muttering.

"Wade, some of these big negroes will pop you over one of these days,"
said Kit.

"Well, I expect it; and who'll be to blame for that? We had them under
good control: you marched your hired Canadians down among us, and set
them 'free,' as you say; which means that you've turned loose a class
of beings in no way fit to be free. The idea of letting those ignorant
niggers vote!--why, they are no more fit to have a voice in the making
of the laws than so many hogs! You have done us a great wrong in
setting them free: you've turned loose among us a horde of the most
indolent, insolent, lustful _beasts_ that ever made a hell of earth.
You can't look for social harmony at the South! Why, we are obliged to
go armed to protect our lives! No lady is safe to walk half a mile
unattended. I state a fact when I say that my mother and my sisters do
not dare to walk about our plantation even, for fear of those brutish
negroes."

"I think you take a rather one-sided view, Wade," said Raed.

"It's the only side I can see."

"Perhaps; but there is another side, nevertheless."

Here a tramping on the stairs was heard, and Weymouth came down,
followed by a large Esquimau.

"He's been trying to make out to us that he's the chief, boss, sachem,
or whatever they call it, of the crowd that was aboard yesterday,"
said Weymouth.

"What does he want?" the captain asked.

"Wants to _chymo_."

Raed made signs for him to sit down in the chair at the table and eat
with us; which, after some hesitation, he did rather awkwardly, and
with a great knocking of his feet against the chairs. He had on a
gorgeous bearskin jacket, with the hood drawn over his head. His face
was large; his nose small, and nearly lo