g if I hadn't knowed the sale warn't no account and the
niggers would be back home in a week or two.

The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many come out
flatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the
children that way. It injured the frauds some; but the old fool he
bulled right along, spite of all the duke could say or do, and I tell you
the duke was powerful uneasy.

Next day was auction day. About broad day in the morning the king and
the duke come up in the garret and woke me up, and I see by their look
that there was trouble. The king says:

"Was you in my room night before last?"

"No, your majesty"--which was the way I always called him when nobody but
our gang warn't around.

"Was you in there yisterday er last night?"

"No, your majesty."

"Honor bright, now--no lies."

"Honor bright, your majesty, I'm telling you the truth. I hain't been
a-near your room since Miss Mary Jane took you and the duke and showed it
to you."

The duke says:

"Have you seen anybody else go in there?"

"No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe."

"Stop and think."

I studied awhile and see my chance; then I says:

"Well, I see the niggers go in there several times."

Both of them gave a little jump, and looked like they hadn't ever
expected it, and then like they HAD. Then the duke says:

"What, all of them?"

"No--leastways, not all at once--that is, I don't think I ever see them
all come OUT at once but just one time."

"Hello! When was that?"

"It was the day we had the funeral. In the morning. It warn't early,
because I overslept. I was just starting down the ladder, and I see
them."

"Well, go on, GO on! What did they do? How'd they act?"

"They didn't do nothing. And they didn't act anyway much, as fur as I
see. They tiptoed away; so I seen, easy enough, that they'd shoved in
there to do up your majesty's room, or something, s'posing you was up;
and found you WARN'T up, and so they was hoping to slide out of the way
of trouble without waking you up, if they hadn't already waked you up."

"Great guns, THIS is a go!" says the king; and both of them looked pretty
sick and tolerable silly. They stood there a-thinking and scratching
their heads a minute, and the duke he bust into a kind of a little raspy
chuckle, and says:

"It does beat all how neat the niggers played their hand. They let on to
be SORRY they was going out of this region! And I