ose twenty-five
negroes were rapidly multiplied into a hundred; while my poor neglected
plantation was, between brothers, well worth five hundred thousand
dollars. We allowed Mr Bob to have it his own way; for it might have
been dangerous to contradict a giant of his calibre, who was always
ready to support his arguments with his huge cocoa nut-coloured fists.
At last Richards was able to slip in a word.

"You are not going to make your speech now, are you?"

"May I be shot if I ain't, though! I'll begin at once."

"Cannot we manage to change our clothes, and get some supper first?"
said Richards.

"Change your clothes!" said Bob contemptuously. "And what for, man? Not
on our account; you're quite smart enough, quite good enough for us--no
occasion to bother yourselves. If it's for your own pleasure, however,
you can do it. Hallo, Johnny!"

And he commenced a negotiation with Johnny, the host, who, to our great
joy, took up a candle, and led the way into a sort of back parlour, with
a promise that we should have our supper before very long.

"Is there no other room where we can dress ourselves?" said I.

"To be sure there is," was the answer. "There's the garret--only there's
my daughter and a dozen gals sleepin' there; then there's the kitchen,
if you like it better."

I looked round the room. A servant girl was beginning to lay the table;
and, unluckily, the apartment was connected by an open door with the
kitchen, in which there was a loud noise of voices. I would have given a
good deal for a quarter of an hour's undisturbed possession of the room.
I looked about for our portmanteaus, but could see nothing of them.

"Six smalls it ain't buffalo hide!" vociferated a young Stentor in the
kitchen.

"Six smalls its cow hide!" roared another.

"If I am not very much mistaken," said Richards, "it is our portmanteaus
that those fellows are betting about."

"That would really be too bad," said I.

Nevertheless, it was as Richards had said. We had little occasion to
fear that the portmanteaus would be lost or injured; but we knew very
well that the only way to get them out of the claws of these rough
backwoodsmen would be by some well-contrived joke. And those jokes were
exactly what I feared; for one had often to risk breaking an arm or a
leg by them. There was a crowd of men in the kitchen. One young fellow,
upwards of six feet high, held a lighted candle; and they were all
busily engaged examining something