It is as lethargic and ferocious as an alligator.

That is why the Creole almost always is (or thinks he is) on the defensive.

See these De Grapions' haughty good manners to old Agricole; yet there wasn't a Grandissime in Louisiana who could have set foot on the De Grapion lands but at the risk of his life.
"But I will finish the story: and here is the really sad part.

Not many months ago old De Grapion--'old,' said I; they don't grow old; I call him old--a few months ago he died.

He must have left everything smothered in debt; for, like his race, he had stuck to indigo because his father planted it, and it is a crop that has lost money steadily for years and years.