ate," chuckled the old gentleman. "'Mr. Pinckney, of Providence, I believe?' said I. 'No, you don't,' said he; and he put his finger on his nose, like that."
"James!" said Mrs. Bowdoin.
"I didn't mind—don't know when I've been so flattered—must look like a pretty sharp old boy, after all, though I have been married to you for fifty years."
"James, it's hardly forty."
"Well, I thought it was fifty. The last time I did meet Tom Pinckney, he asked if I'd married again. I said you'd give me no chance. 'Better take it when you can,' said he. 'That will I, Tom,' says I. 'I've got one in my mind.'"
"Really, grandpa," remonstrated young Harley.
"Don't you talk, young man. Didn't I hear of you at another Abolition meeting yesterday? And women spoke, too,—short-haired women and long-haired men. Why can't you leave them both where a wise Providence placed them? Destroy the only free republic the world has ever known for a parcel of well-fed niggers that'll relapse into Voodoo barbarism the moment they're freed!"
