One day, while the excitement attending the second shooting was thus growing, Colonel French received through the mail a mysteriously worded note, vaguely hinting at some matter of public importance which the writer wished to communicate to him, and requesting a private interview for the purpose, that evening, at the colonel's house. The note, which had every internal evidence of sincerity, was signed by Henry Taylor, the principal of the coloured school, whom the colonel had met several times in reference to the proposed industrial school. From the tenor of the communication, and what he knew about Taylor, the colonel had no doubt that the matter was one of importance, at least not one to be dismissed without examination. He thereupon stepped into Caxton's office and wrote an answer to the letter, fixing eight o'clock that evening as the time, and his own library as the place, of a meeting with the teacher. This letter he deposited in the post-office personally--it was only a step from Caxton's office. Upon coming out of the post-office he saw the teacher standing on an opposite corner. When the colonel had passed out of sight, Taylor crossed the street, entered the post-office, and soon emerged with the letter. He had given no sign that he saw the colonel, but had looked rather ostentatiously the other way when that gentleman had glanced in his direction.
At the appointed hour there was a light step on the colonel's piazza. The colonel was on watch, and opened the door himself, ushering Taylor into his library, a very handsome and comfortable room, the door of which he carefully closed behind them.
"Colonel French," replied the other, "I'm in a hard situation, and I want you to promise that you'll never let on to any body that I told you what I'm going to say."
"All right, Mr. Taylor, if it is a proper promise to make. You can trust my discretion."
"Yes, sir, I'm sure I can. We coloured folks, sir, are often accused of trying to shield criminals of our own race, or of not helping the officers of the law to catch them. Maybe we does, suh," he said, lapsing in his earnestness, into bad grammar, "maybe we does sometimes, but not without reason."
"Well, sir, fer the reason that we ain't always shore that a coloured man will get a fair trial, or any trial at all, or that he'll get a just sentence after he's been tried. We have no hand in makin' the laws, or in enforcin' 'em; we are not summoned on jury; and yet we're asked to do the work of constables and sheriffs who are paid for arrestin' criminals, an' for protectin' 'em from mobs, which they don't do."