the study, where
Peter pumped and lighted it; a bit later its brilliant white light
flooded the room.

"Quite good." The old Captain stood rubbing his hands with his odd air
of continued delight. "How do you like this place, anyway, Peter?" He
wrapped his gown around him, sat down in the old Morris chair beside the
book-piled table, and indicated another seat for Peter.

The mulatto took it, aware of a certain flexing of Hooker's Bend custom,
where negroes, unless old or infirm, are not supposed to sit in the
presence of whites.

"Do you mean the study, Captain?"

"Yes, the study, the whole place."

"It's very pleasant," replied Peter; "it has the atmosphere of age."

Captain Renfrew nodded.

"These old places," pursued Peter, "always give me an impression of
statesmanship, somehow. I always think of grave old gentlemen busy with
the cares of public policy."

The old man seemed gratified.

"You are sensitive to atmosphere. If I may say it, every Southron of the
old regime was a statesman by nature and training. The complete care of
two or three hundred negroes, a regard for their bodily, moral, and
spiritual welfare, inevitably led the master into the impersonal
attitude of statecraft. It was a training, sir, in leadership, in social
thinking, in, if you please, altruism." The old gentleman thumped the
arm of his chair with a translucent palm. "Yes, sir, negro slavery was
God's great lesson to the South in altruism and loving-kindness, sir! My
boy, I do believe with all my heart that the institution of slavery was
placed here in God's country to rear up giants of political leadership,
that our nation might weather the revolutions of the world. Oh, the
Yankees are necessary! I know that!" The old Captain held up a palm at
Peter as if repressing an imminent retort. "I know the Yankees are the
Marthas of the nation. They furnish food and fuel to the ship of state,
but, my boy, the reservoir of our country's spiritual and mental
strength, the Mary of our nation, must always be the South. Virginia is
the mother of Presidents!"

The Captain's oration left him rather breathless. He paused a moment,
then asked:

"Peter, have you ever thought that we men of the leisure class owe a
debt to the world?"

Peter smiled.

"I know the theory of the leisure class, but I've had very little
practical experience with leisure."

"Well, that's a subject close to my heart. As a scholar and a thinker, I
feel that I should