Bartleby the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street

90 THE PIAZZA TALES
'
'
Yes.'
Upon my conscience, then,' exclaimed Captain Delano
he has a royal spirit in him, this fellow.'
impulsively, '
*
He may have some right to it,' bitterly returned
Don Benito, '
he says he was king in his own land.'
those slits
'
Yes,' said the servant, entering a word, *
in Atufal's ears once held wedges of gold ; but poor
Babo here, in his own land, was only a poor slave a
;
black man's slave was Babo, who now is the white's.'
Somewhat annoyed by these conversational famili-
arities, Captain Delano turned curiously upon the
attendant, then glanced inquiringly at his master ; but,
as if long wonted to these little informalities, neither
master nor man seemed to understand him.
1
What, pray, was Atufal's offence, Don Benito ? '
asked Captain Delano ;
,' if it was not something very
serious, take a fool's advice, and, in view of his general
docility, as well as in some natural respect for his spirit,
remit him his penalty.'
'
No, no, master never will do that,' here murmured the
servant to himself, '
Atufal must first ask master's
proud
t pardon. The slave there carries the padlock, but master
j here carries the key.'
His attention thus directed, Captain
Delano now
noticed for the first, that, suspended by a slender silken
cord from Don Benito's neck, hung a key. At once,
from the servant's muttered syllables, divining the key's
purpose, he smiled and said :— So, Don Benito— padlock
and key — significant symbols, truly.'
Biting his lip, Don Benito faltered.
Though the remark of Captain Delano, a man of such
native simplicity as to be incapable of satire or irony,
had been dropped in playful allusion to the Spaniard's
singularly evidenced lordship over the black ; yet the
hypochondriac seemed some way to have taken it as a