“ [310] as they do-and harder too; only, they work with their hands and I work with my head!” I could not help laughing. For I never saw a lazier-looking fellow in my life; and, if there is any truth in phrenological science, it might easily be disputed whether he had got any head to work with. I asked him how much he would sell Georgy for? Georgy was the brother of Millar. “He would take,” he said, “one thousand dollars down. Nary cent less. No, sir, nary cent; he was a right smart boy and would bring that any day.” I waited in Liberty two or three days in the hope of meeting the boy. I would have waited some days longer, but my departure was hastened by an act of carelessness. Liberty had distinguished herself, during the Kansas troubles, by her ultra devotion to “Southern rights.” She sent out bands of brutal men to vote and fight for slavery in Kansas. When in my room, at the hotel, I perpetrated the following atrocity:
On Liberty in Missouri.
As maids (or unmaids), if you'll pardon the new phrase,Who ne'er have trodden Virtue's straight and narrow ways,
But sell their foul desires,
Whose path (says Solomon), leads downward to the grave
And the infernal fires,
Are styled by bacchanals and rakes, Nymphs (of the pave!)
So, on slave soil, we see
A town, renowned for despot deeds and ruffian bands,
Self-styled by men with Freedom's life-blood-dropping hands
The Town of — Liberty!
With my usual carelessness, I left this poetical abortion on the table. When I returned, it was gone. Now, as, upon reflection, I saw that the execution of these
