"And where is Judge Custis's, you rum chub?"

"Yander!" pointing to Teackle Hall.

"Ha! that is a Judge's? And niggers? Broke, too! Well, it's no hank for a napper bloke. So bingavast! Git! Whar's the tavern?"

"I'm a-goin' right thair," answered Levin, much relieved. "You must be a Yankee, or some other furriner, sir."

"No, hobb! I'm workin' my lay back to Delaware from Norfolk, by pungy to Somers's cove. Show me to the tavern and I'll sluice your gob. I'll treat you to swig."

At the prospect of a drink, of which he was too fond, Levin led the way to the Washington Tavern, where there was a material addition to the attendance since Jimmy Phoebus had called to every passer-by that Meshach Milburn, on the testimony of Jack Wonnell, had actually been and gone and disappeared in Judge Custis's doorway, and nearly a dozen townsfolks were now discussing the why and wherefore, when, suddenly, Levin Dennis came out of Church Street with a man over six feet high, of a prodigious pair of legs, and arms nearly as long, with a cold, challenging, yet restless pair of blue eyes, and with reddish-brown beard and hair, coarse and stringy. The free negro, Samson Hat, being a little way off, was observed to cast a beaming glance of admiration at the athletic proportions of the stranger, who looked as if he might shoulder an ox, or outrun a horse.

"Hallo!" exclaimed Jimmy Phoebus, looking the stranger over boldly, yet with indifference, at last. "You're cuttin' a splurge, Levin, too. Where's Meshach?"

"Can't see no sign of him, Jimmy. Guess Jack Wonnell hit it, an' he's gone in the Jedge's. Mebbe he's buyin' of Jedge Custis's niggers. That's this gentleman's business."

Jimmy Phoebus, himself no slight specimen of a man, gave another glance at the stranger from the black cherries of his eyes, and, apparently no better satisfied with the inspection, made no sign of acquaintance.

"Whoever ain't too nice to drink with a nigger buyer," said the man, independently, "can come in and set up his drink, with my redge, for I'm rhino-fat and just rotten with flush."

There was a pause for somebody to take the initiative, but Jimmy Phoebus, turning his big, broad Greekish face and small forehead on the stranger, remarked:

"I never tuk a drink with a nigger buyer yit, and, by smoke! I reckon I'm too old to begin."

The man stopped and measured Jimmy up in his eye.

"Humph!" he said with a sneer, "you look to be a little more than half nigger yourself. If I was dead broke I'd run you to market an' git my price for you."

"No doubt of it whatever, as fur as you're concerned," said Jimmy, unexcited, while the man pushed Levin Dennis in towards the bar.

Either the new movement of Meshach Milburn, or the example of the strange man, set Princess Anne in a tipsy condition that day. The stranger was full of money, and treating indiscriminately, and the pavement before the hotel was continually beset with the loiterers, and the bar took money and spread mischief. So when, an hour after dark, the unpopular townsman, avoiding the crowd, passed by on the opposite side of the street, nearest his own lodging, one of the loudest and most unanimous yells he had ever heard in his experience, rang out from the Washington Tavern.