of thwacks appear in this receptacle of dismal
cudgelling. The sight of the poor fellow's
striped back brought the image vividly before
me, as well as the received fiction in the
Southern States, that the negro is little
better than a brute; a notion which seemed
to have been unconsciously illustrated by the
artist. No decoration of the kind, however,
was noticeable in the second auction-room.
In the back-ground was a gentleman
reclining against his wooden arm-chair,
absorbed in the perusal of a newspaper,
apparently as unconscious of what was going
on around him, as if he himself had been
framed and glazed. I was glad to turn away
from the scene, if it were but for a few
minutes.

As I emerged from the place and crossed
over the way, I came unexpectedly upon
what evidently was to be the third scene
of operations. The house was a corner one,
and open at its two sides on the ground-floor.
I do not hesitate to pronounce the
spectacle which here presented itself to be
one of the most touching which could well be
revealed to the sight. On a bench sat, in
expectancy of coming fate, a buxom negress,
clasping an infant in her arms; its little
profile lost in the folds of her ample
neck-handkerchief, its little black and shoeless
feet dangling from her lap. Other children,
a trifle older, lounged on each side of her.
On the right, with fingers to his lips, and the
one hand clinging to his mother's apron, sat
a little fellow, quaintly, yet neatly attired, in
a jacket; on his head an oil-skin cap, which
would have been pronounced large by a full-blown
English engineer, who is also given to
this species of head-gear. Nestling at the
left was a little girl, who looked wistfully in
the direction of the coming company, as if
conscious of some strange foreshadowed
event. The diminutive striped cap, and the
cinnabar-coloured shoes attested the mother's
care of her. This group occupied the centre
of the bench, and so engrossed one's interest,
that the four other women who made up the
complement of weight which the seat was made
to hold, seemed quite secondary personages.
Each of the two who occupied the extreme left,
wore a red fillet round her woolly hair, which
seems to be adopted by the younger negresses
as more becoming than the turban of the dowager
ladies, who in this respect ape their more
fortunate superiors. A stolid-looking negro
sat apart from these, and seemed almost to
belong to an inferior caste of blacks from the
excessive protrusion of his thick under-lip: a
feature which seems to vary, according to
the known law of labial deformity. I have
been thus circumstantial because the group
is rivetted in my memory as strongly as if I
saw it but yesterday. I found in it a perfect
composition, in which the picturesque element
was blended with singular pathos. In
a hardly justifiable fit of enthusiasm, when
time and place are considered, I took out
pencil and paper to try and trace a few of
those inimitable lines which we only find
recurring in nature. I had not proceeded far
with my sketch, when the hum of voices, and
then a general muster round the seat I
had selected to draw from, showed that I
was transgressing some rule of the place;
nothing daunted, I went on sketching, when
one of the girls was called off from her seat
by the dealer, and both mounted on the
auctioneer's table. The fellow had bared the
woman's arm, and was descanting on the
merits of her feminine proportions, begging
for a bid. No one nodded. There seemed to
be no purchaser, although all were looking
on. Vaguely connecting my presence with
this unusual want of alacrity on the part of
his customers, the dealer jumped down from
his perch on the settee, and asked me what I
was doing? I answered:

"I don't feel bound to answer your questions."

Hardly satisfied at this reply, he left me
abruptly, resumed his post, and once more
endeavoured to rouse his clients to a proper
sense of the value of the woman now offered
for sale. This effect was equally fruitless.
With ill-disguised rage the dealer was once
more before me, for I still kept on sketching,
wondering what would be the final issue of
the adventure.

"I must know what you are about," said
he, in a tremulous voice, his face livid with
smothered passion.

"You can look for yourself. I am sketching,"
I said, as composedly as I could, though
evidently matters were getting serious. Fancy
being surrounded by infuriated Legrees!
However, coolness had its effect. For the
third time the auctioneer tripped to the right
of the negress, who was all this time standing
in a purgatorial state, being neither owned,
bought, nor sold. The dealers were utterly
motionless, and did not heed the offered bait.
They kept looking askance at me; and my
occupation quite engrossed their curiosity.
This was more than flesh and blood (at
least, the little that could be discovered of
either on the attenuated person of this dealer)
could bear. The third and last appeal came
to me worded thus:

"If a party came to your store, and interrupted
your business, how would you like
that?"

This logical innuendo had in it something
at once so unanswerable, that I started up
from my seat and said:

"O! if I interrupt your business, I shall
go."

I walked to the place of egress — it was
larger than a doorway— when I heard a hum
ominous of mischief: yet, not wishing to look
as if I was flying, I turned into the second
auction-room, I had already visited. It was
tenanted by a solitary negro boy, whom I
had not noticed when I was there previously.
I had time rapidly to sketch his features, as