Now these unfortunates are out in the cold; their own people
can't help them, and the white man won't."
"Were you a slave-owner?" I asked, not wishing to dispute the point.
"No, sir; but my father was. He had fifty of them on our plantation. He
never whipped one of them, and he wouldn't let anybody else strike them,
either. There wasn't one of them that wouldn't have come back if we had
had a place to put him. The old ones are all dead now, thank God!--all
except old Aleck; he's around yet."
"One of your father's slaves, did you say?"
I was tapping away at the door of his recollections, camera all ready.
"Yes; he carried me about on his back when I was so high," and he
measured the distance with his hand. "Aleck and I were boys together. I
was about eight and he about fifteen when my father got him."
My companion paused, drumming on the leather covering of his chair. I
waited, hoping he would at least open his door wide enough to give me a
glimpse inside.
"Curiously enough," he went on, "I've been thinking of Aleck all day.
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