d on: "'Fo' Gawd, I hopes his viddles chokes him! I
hope his ole smoke-house falls down on his ole haid. I hope to Jesus--"

Peter pleaded with her not to think the Captain was behind his
observations, but the hag rushed out of the bedroom, swinging her head
from side to side, uttering the most terrible maledictions. She would
show him! She wouldn't put another foot in his old kitchen. Wild horses
couldn't drag her into his smoke-house again.

Peter ran to the door and called after her down the piazza, trying to
exonerate the Captain: but she either did not or would not hear, and
vanished into the kitchen, still furious.

Old Rose made Peter so uneasy that he deserted his breakfast midway and
hurried to the library. In the solemn old room he found the Captain
alone and in rather a pleased mood. The old gentleman stood patting and
alining a pile of manuscript. As the mulatto entered he exclaimed:

"Well, here's Peter again!" as if his secretary had been off on a long
journey. Immediately afterward he added, "Peter, guess what I did last
night." His voice was full of triumph.

Peter was thinking about Aunt Rose, and stood looking at the Captain
without the slightest idea.

"I wrote all of this,"--he indicated his manuscript,--"over a hundred
pages."

Peter considered the work without much enthusiasm.

"You must have worked all night."

The old attorney rubbed his hands.

"I think I may claim a touch of inspiration last night, Peter.
Reminiscences rippled from under my pen, propitious words, prosperous
sentences. Er--the fact is, Peter, you will see, when you begin copying,
I had come to a matter--a--a matter of some moment in my life. Every
life contains such moments, Peter. I had meant to write something in the
nature of a defen--an explanation, Peter. But after you left the library
last night it suddenly occurred to me just to give each fact as it took
place, quite frankly. So I did that--not--not what I meant to write, at
all--ah. As you copy it, you may find it not entirely without some
interest to yourself, Peter."

"To me?" repeated Peter, after the fashion of the unattentative.

"Yes, to yourself." The Captain was oddly moved. He took his hands off
the script, walked a little away from the table, came back to it. "It--
ah--may explain a good many things that--er--may have puzzled you." He
cleared his throat and shifted his subject briskly. "We ought to be
thinking about a publisher. What publisher sha