h little jerks, as if he
were going through a ritual.

Peter grew more and more hilarious over his barber's manners. It was his
contribution to the old gentleman's literary labors, and he was doing it
beautifully, so he thought. He was just making some minute adjustments
of the collar when, to his amazement, Captain Renfrew turned on him.

"Damn it, sir!" he flared out. "What do you think you are? I didn't
engage you for a kowtowing valet in waiting, sir! I asked you, sir, to
come under my roof as an intellectual co-worker, as one gentleman asks
another, and here you are making these niggery motions! They are
disgusting! They are defiling! They are beneath the dignity of one
gentleman to another, sir! What makes it more degrading, I perceive by
your mannerism that you assume a specious servility, sir, as if you
would flatter me by it!"

The old lawyer's face was white. His angry old eyes jerked Peter out of
his slight mummery. The negro felt oddly like a grammar-school boy
caught making faces behind his master's back. It shocked him into
sincerer manners.

"Captain," he said with a certain stiffness, "I apologize for my
mistake; but may I ask how you desire me to act?"

"Simply, naturally, sir," thundered the Captain, "as one alumnus of
Harvard to another! It is quite proper for a young man, sir, to assist
an old gentleman with his hat and coat, but without fripperies and
genuflections and absurdities!"

The old man's hauteur touched some spring of resentment in Peter. He
shook his head.

"No, Captain; our lack of sympathy goes deeper than manners. My position
here is anomalous. For instance, I can talk to you sitting, I can drink
with you standing, but I can't breakfast with you at all. I do that
_in camera_, like a disgraceful divorce proceeding. It's precisely
as I was treated coming down here South again; it's as I've been treated
ever since I've been back; it's--" He paused abruptly and swallowed down
the rancor that filled him. "No," he repeated in a different tone,
"there is no earthly excuse for me to remain here, Captain, or to let
you go on measuring out your indulgences to me. There is no way for us
to get together or to work together--not this far South. Let me thank
you for a night's entertainment and go."

Peter turned about, meaning to make an end of this queer adventure.

The old Captain watched him, and his pallor increased. He lifted an
unsteady hand.

"No, no, Peter," he objected, "not so