From time to time I had given him hints that I was afraid of being too
late for dinner at my lodgings; and when the sight-seeing was at last
ended, he very coolly and complacently said, "Now, if you really think
you are too late for dinner at your place, I shall be under the
_necessity_ of asking you to go and take a plate with me." Those were
the _ipsissima verba_. I could scarcely keep my gravity; but I replied,
"Thank you, sir; I want to go to the centre of the city, and I can
easily get a dinner at any eating-house." He both nodded and expressed
an entire concurrence, and seemed to think it an _admirable_
arrangement. In parting, he pressed me to preach for him on the
following Thursday, but I declined. The next day I was told, on
unquestionable authority, that two or three years ago one of the elders
of this gentleman's church, meeting a man from South America whom he
took to be a mixture of Spaniard and Indian, requested his company to
church. The stranger assented, and sat with him in his pew. He liked
the service, became interested, and went again and again. At last it
was whispered that he was a "Nigger,"--_i.
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