person, but he appears endued with a singular credulity.—Tell me, sir, do you really think that a white could look the negro so? For one, I should call it pretty good acting."
"Not much better than any other man acts."
"How? Does all the world act? Am I, for instance, an actor? Is my reverend friend here, too, a performer?"
"Yes, don't you both perform acts? To do, is to act; so all doers are actors."
"You trifle.—I ask again, if a white, how could he look the negro so?"
"Never saw the negro-minstrels, I suppose?"
"Yes, but they are apt to overdo the ebony; exemplifying the old saying, not more just than charitable, that 'the devil is never so black as he is painted.' But his limbs, if not a cripple, how could he twist his limbs so?"
"How do other hypocritical beggars twist theirs? Easy enough to see how they are hoisted up."
"The sham is evident, then?"
"To the discerning eye," with a horrible screw of his gimlet one.
"Well, where is Guinea?" said the man in gray; "where is he? Let us at once find him and refute beyond cavil this injurious hypothesis."
"Do so," cried the one-eyed man, "I'm just in the humor now for having him found, and leaving the streaks of these fingers on his paint, as the lion leaves the streaks of his nails on a Caffre. They wouldn't let me touch him before. Yes, find him, I'll make wool fly, and him after."
