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“Do you think so?” The Major was manifestly flattered. “I was apprehensive that I might be growing a trifle fat,”–he turned carefully around before the mirror,–“and from a fat old man and a scrawny old woman, Heaven deliver us, George Washington!”

“Nor, suh, you ain’ got a ounce too much meat on you,” said George, reassuringly; “how much you weigh, Marse Nat, last time you was on de stilyards?” he inquired with wily interest.

The Major faced him.

“George Washington, the last time I weighed I tipped the beam at one hundred and forty-three pounds, and I had the waist of a girl.”

He laid his fat hands with the finger tips touching on his round sides about where the long since reversed curves of the lamented waist once were, and gazed at George with comical melancholy.

“Dat’s so,” assented the latter, with wonted acquiescence. “I ‘members hit well, suh, dat wuz when me and you wuz down in Gloucester tryin’ to git up spunk to co’te Miss Ailsy Mann. Dat’s mo’n thirty years ago.”

The Major reflected. “It cannot be thirty years!–thir–ty–years,” he mused.

“Yes, suh, an’ better, too. ‘Twuz befo’ we fit de duil wid Jedge Carrington. I know dat, ’cause dat’s what we shoot him ’bout–’cause he co’te Miss Ailsy an’ cut we out.”

“Damn your memory! Thirty years! I could dance all night then–every night in the week–and now I can hardly mount my horse without getting the thumps.”

George Washington, affected by his reminiscences, declared that he had heard one of the ladies saying, “just the other day,” what “a fine portly gentleman” he was.

The Major brightened.

“Did you hear that? George Washington, if you tell me a lie I’ll set you free!” It was his most terrible threat, used only on occasions of exceptional provocation.

George vowed that no reward could induce him to be guilty of such an enormity, and followed it up by so skilful an allusion to the progressing youth of his master that the latter swore he was right, and that he could dance better than he could at thirty, and to prove it executed, with extraordinary agility for a man who rode at twenty stone, a pas seul which made the floor rock and set the windows and ornaments to rattling as if there had been an earthquake. Suddenly, with a loud “Whew,” he flung himself into an arm-chair, panting and perspiring. “It’s you, sir,” he gasped–“you put me up to it.”

“Nor, suh; tain me, Marse Nat–I’s tellin’ you de truf,” asserted George, moved to defend himself.

“You infernal old rascal, it is you,” panted the Major, still mopping his face–“you have been running riot so long you need regulation–I’ll tell you what I’ll do–I’ll marry and give you a mistress to manage you–yes, sir, I’ll get married right away. I know the very woman for you–she’ll make you walk chalk!”

For thirty years this had been his threat, so George was no more alarmed than he was at the promise of being sold, or turned loose upon the world as a free man. He therefore inquired solemnly,

“Marse Nat, le’ me ax you one thing–you ain’ thinkin’ ’bout givin’ me that ole one for a mistis is you?”

“What old one, fool?” The Major stopped panting. George Washington denoted the side of his head where Miss Jemima’s thin curls nestled.

“Get out of this room. Tell Dilsy to pack your chest, I’ll send you off to-morrow morning.”

George Washington blinked with the gravity of a terrapin. It might have been obtuseness; or it might have been silent but exquisite enjoyment which lay beneath his black skin.

“George Washington,” said the Major almost in a whisper, “what made you think that?”

It was to George Washington’s undying credit that not a gleam flitted across his ebony countenance as he said solemnly,

“Marse Nat, I ain say I think nuttin–I jis ax you, Is you?–She been meckin mighty partic’lar quiration ’bout de plantation and how many niggers we got an’ all an’ I jis spicionate she got her eye sort o’ set on you an’ me, dat’s all.”