Read "Freaks of Fortune" by Oliver Optic online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
If Mr. C. Augustus Ebenier had been a prudent colored man, he would have avoided the meeting which Captain Dock Vincent contrived to bring about, by dodging around the rocks, and again appearing in the principal path. But he was not a prudent colored man; and when he saw the dangerous individual before him, though he might easily have turned aside so as to avoid him, he did not do so.
The steward was a very peaceable and well-disposed person on board the yacht, and elsewhere, but under certain circumstances he was a belligerent colored man. He had a very reasonable and decided objection to being called a "nigger. " He claimed that he was a gentleman, and while he behaved like a gentleman, he declined to be insulted with impunity. Mr. Ebenier saw the person who had applied this obnoxious epithet to him during the examination. It is possible that his heart beat a little quicker when he discovered the blackguard, as he regarded him; but it is certain that he did not turn to the right or the left, but proceeded on his way as though Dock had been a pygmy, instead of the heavy, stout man he was.