"Dear, how frightful!" exclaimed Miss Jemima, just as the Major entered somewhat hastily.
"He's a gone coon," said George Washington through the crack of the door to the old gentleman in ruffles, as he pulled the door slowly to from the outside.
The Major had left the young people in the dining-room and had come to get a book to settle a disputed quotation. He had found the work and was trying to read it without the ignominy of putting on his glasses, when Miss Jemima accosted him.
"Major, your valet appears to be a very intelligent person."
"I mean your body servant, your butler"--explained Miss Jemima. "I have been much impressed by him."
"George!--George Washington?--you mean George Washington! No, madam, he has not a particle of intelligence.--He is grossly and densely stupid. I have never in fifty years been able to get an idea into his head."
"Oh, dear! and I thought him so clever! I was wondering how so intelligent a person, so well informed, could be a slave."
"George! George Washington a slave! Madam, you misapprehend the situation. _He_ is no slave. I am the slave, not only of him but of three hundred more as arrogant and exacting as the Czar, and as lazy as the devil!"
Miss Jemima threw up her hands in astonishment, and the Major, who was on a favorite theme, proceeded:
"Why, madam, the very coat on my back belongs to that rascal George Washington, and I do not know when he may take a fancy to order me out of it. My soul is not my own. He drinks my whiskey, steals my tobacco, and takes my clothes before my face. As likely as not he will have on this very waistcoat before the week is out."
The Major stroked his well-filled velvet vest caressingly, as if he already felt the pangs of the approaching separation.
"Oh, dear! You amaze me," began Miss Jemima.
"Yes, madam, I should be amazed myself, except that I have stood it so long. Why, I had once an affair with an intimate and valued friend, Judge Carrington. You may have heard of him, a very distinguished man! and I was indiscreet enough to carry that rascal George Washington to the field, thinking, of course, that I ought to go like a gentleman, and although the affair was arranged after we had taken our positions, and I did not have the pleasure of shooting at him,----"