Richard Owens, Esq., and servant, from Kentucky, registered at the
fashionable New York hostelry for Southerners in those days, a hotel
where an atmosphere congenial to Southern institutions was sedulously
maintained. But there were negro waiters in the dining-room, and mulatto
bell-boys, and Dick had no doubt that Grandison, with the native
gregariousness and garrulousness of his race, would foregather and
palaver with them sooner or later, and Dick hoped that they would
speedily inoculate him with the virus of freedom. For it was not Dick's
intention to say anything to his servant about his plan to free him, for
obvious reasons. To mention one of them, if Grandison should go away,
and by legal process be recaptured, his young master's part in the
matter would doubtless become known, which would be embarrassing to
Dick, to say the least. If, on the other hand, he should merely give
Grandison sufficient latitude, he had no doubt he would eventually lose
him. For while not exactly skeptical about Grandison's perfervid
loyalty, Dick had been a somewhat keen observer of human nature, in his
own indolent way, and based his expectations upon the force of the
example and argument that his servant could scarcely fail to encounter.
Grandison should have a fair chance to become free by his own
initiative; if it should become necessary to adopt other measures to get
rid of him, it would be time enough to act when the necessity arose; and
Dick Owens was not the youth to take needless trouble.
The young master renewed some acquaintances and made others, and spent a
week or two very pleasantly in the best society of the metropolis,
easily accessible to a wealthy, well-bred young Southerner, with proper
introductions. Young women smiled on him, and young men of convivial
habits pressed their hospitalities; but the memory of Charity's sweet,
strong face and clear blue eyes made him proof against the blandishments
of the one sex and the persuasions of the other. Meanwhile he kept
Grandison supplied with pocket-money, and left him mainly to his own
devices. Every night when Dick came in he hoped he might have to wait
upon himself, and every morning he looked forward with pleasure to the
prospect of making his toilet unaided. His hopes, however, were doomed
to disappointment, for every night when he came in Grandison was on hand
with a bootjack, and a nightcap mixed for his young master as the
colonel had taught him to mix it, and every morning Grandison appeared
with his master's boots blacked and his clothes brushed, and laid his
linen out for the day.
"Grandison," said Dick one morning, after finishing his toilet, "this is
the chance of your life to go around among your own people and see how
they live. Have you met any of them?"
"Yas, suh, I 's seen some of 'em. But I don' keer nuffin fer 'em, suh.
Dey 're diffe'nt f'm de niggers down ou' way. Dey 'lows dey 're free,
but dey ain' got sense 'nuff ter know dey ain' half as well off as dey
would be down Souf, whar dey 'd be 'predated."
When two weeks had passed without any apparent effect of evil example
upon Grandison, Dick resolved to go on to Boston, where he thought the
atmosphere might prove more favorable to his ends. After he had been at
the Revere House for a day or two without losing Grandison, he decided
upon slightly different tactics.
Having ascertained from a city directory the addresses of several
well-known abolitionists, he wrote them each a letter something like
this:----