through the
meshes of the Creole dandies, not offensively, but as the law of his
volume and momentum dictates, and they yield the _pas_ to his superior
weight and metal. They are civil, and he is civil, but they do not like
one another, for all that. That Zodiac passed, they continue their own
summery orbit of charm and conquest. He tends toward the aureal spheres
and the green and pleasant banks of issue. The colonel is not here for
pleasure, though he takes a little pleasure, as is his way, seasonably;
but he means business, and that several thirsty, eager cotton-houses of
repute know.

Of course they know. It came in his letters and distills in the aroma of
his talk. It may even have slipped into the personals of the _Pic_ and
_Times_ that Colonel Beverage has taken Millefleur and Rottenbottom
plantations on Red River, and is going extensively into the cultivation
of the staple. The colonel is modest over this: "not extensively, no,
but to the extent of his limited means." In the mean while he looks out
for some sound, well-recommended cotton-house.

This means business. In the North the farmer raises his crop on his own
capital, and turns it over unencumbered to the merchant for the public.
The credit system prevails in the agriculture of the South, and brings
another precarious element into the already hazardous occupation of
cotton-growing. A new party appears in the cotton-merchant. He is not
merely the broker, yielding the proceeds, less a commission, to the
planter. Either, by hypothecation on advances made during the year, he
secures a legal pre-emption in the crop, or, by initiatory contract, he
becomes an actual partner of limited liability in the crop itself. He
agrees to furnish so much cash capital at periods for the cultivation
and securing of the crop, which is husbanded by the planter. The money
for these advances he obtains from the banks; and hence it is that in
every cotton-crop raised South there are three or more principals
actually interested--the banker, the merchant and the planter. This
condition of planting is almost invariable. Even the small farmer, whose
crop is a few bags, is ground into it. In his case the country-side
grocer and dealer is banker and merchant, and his advances the bare
necessaries. In this blending of interests the curious partnership
rises, thrives, labors and sometimes falls--the planter, as a rule,
undermost in that accident.

The Millefleur and Rottenbottom planta