"Yes, dear Gelid, so sure as you have been landed down on your
posteriors now--ah--you shall be handed down to your posterity
hereafter, by that pestilent little scamp Cringle. Ah, Tom, I know you.
Paul, Paul, it will be paulo postfuturum with you, my lad."
Here we were interrupted by my steward's entering with his tallow face.
"Dinner on the table, sir." We adjourned accordingly.
After dinner we carried on very much as usual, although the events of
the previous day had their natural effect; there was little mirth, and
no loud laughter. Once more we all turned in, the calm still
continuing, and next morning after breakfast, friend Aaron took to the
Log again.
But the most amusing exhibition took place when he came to the
description of the row in the dark stair at the agent's house, where the
negroes fight for the scraps, and capsize Treenail, myself, and the
brown lady, down the steps.
"Why, I say, Tom," again quoth Aaron, "I never knew before, that you
were in Jamaica at the period you here write of."
"Why, my dear sir, I scarcely can say that I was there, my visit was
so hurried."
"Hurried!" rejoined he, "hurried--by no means; were you not in the
island for four or five hours? Ah, long enough to have authorized your
writing an anti--slavery pamphlet of one hundred and fifty pages."
I smiled.
"Oh, you may laugh, my boy, but it is true--what a subject for an anti--
slavery lecture--listen and be instructed.
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