HIS FESTIVAL SUIT. 59 



services. In this respect one thing irritated him ; any 

 mishap or disarrangement rendered him ferocious. In 

 spite of the timidity proverbially considered a character- 

 istic of the children of genius, old Richard was fierce as 

 an hysena when, at any of the negro fetes over which he 

 presided, there was the slightest failure in etiquette or 

 the convenances. As for himself, he was scrupulous to 

 a fault in every minute observance ; and since he had 

 been called to the position whose high functions he 

 discharged so admirably, no one had ever been kept wait- 

 ing for him. And yet one day poor Dick ! The fol- 

 lowing plain, unvarnished narrative will show that it 

 was not his fault if he once failed in his engagement. 



A negro marriage was to take place on a plantation 

 situated about six miles from that where the old fiddler 

 lived. To make the feast complete, he had been duly 

 invited, and by common consent was appointed master of 

 the ceremonies. It was winter-time ; the cold was ex- 

 cessive ; and the snow, having fallen for three days con- 

 tinuously, covered the ground to a depth of several feet. 



While all Mr. Henderson's negroes, with their master's 

 kind permission, hastened to repair to the scene of fes- 

 tivity, the black Apollo had attended to his toilette with 

 even more than his wonted particularity. A shirt collar 

 of white linen, as immeasurably long in front as it was 

 high behind, so that Richard's head resembled a ball of 

 charcoal in a sheet of white paper a blue coat with gilt 

 buttons long full trousers down to the heels of his boots 

 a red silk cravat fringed at both ends a green waist- 

 coat ornamented with a patch of orange where the watch- 

 pocket was formerly placed boots which, alas ! had seen 

 their best days and a hat of the Calabrian shape; such 



