- We learn some more about old Pudd'nhead, like how his reputation for being dumb pretty much killed his hopes for establishing a law career. He's managed to find work as a land surveyor and an accountant, but he still dreams about becoming a lawyer.
- Pudd'nhead also keeps himself busy with hobbies. No, he doesn't play video games or shoot hoops. Pudd'nhead's hobbies are way more eccentric; he's into reading people's palms and collecting their fingerprints.
- One day, Pudd'nhead is interrupted from his work by some commotion outside his window. It's Roxy and her friend Jasper teasing each other.
- Pudd'nhead watches them from his window and we find out that even though Roxy is a slave, her skin is super light because she's technically only "one-sixteenth black" (i.e. one of her distant ancestors was black).
- Sorry for the interruption, but we thought now would be a good time to clarify that according to the "one drop rule" in place during the nineteenth century, any bit of African ancestry made a person black in the eyes of the law and therefore also made them a slave. We now return to our regularly scheduled program.
- Roxy's baby, Valet de Chambre (a.k.a. Chambers), is also so light-skinned that he, like Roxy, appears white. In fact, Chambers looks so much like Percy Driscoll's baby, Thomas, that Driscoll himself can only tell the kids apart by their clothes.
- Pudd'nhead steps outside to chat with Roxy.
- Ah, Pudd'nhead seizes the perfect opportunity to add to his collection. Pudd'nhead asks Roxy to give him her fingerprints and she does. He also takes the fingerprints of both kids. He labels and dates them just as any good obsessive fingerprint-collector would do.
- Fast forward two months. Pudd'nhead takes the fingerprints of Roxy and the kids again (we're told he likes to take kids' fingerprints every few years just for good measure). Man, this guy is strange.
- Scandal! We learn that someone has been stealing money from Percy Driscoll. Percy calls all four of his slaves together and threatens to sell the thief.
- Percy demands that the thief confess. But (big surprise) everyone keeps their mouths shut. Not a peep.
- Percy warns them that if the guilty party doesn't confess ASAP, he's going to sell all four "down the river."
- Down the river!??!?! Gulp. It turns out that being sold down the river is pretty much the worst fate to which a slave could be doomed. The slaves drop to their knees and cry out.
- (FYI: these characters aren't just being drama queens. It's not that slavery was a picnic anywhere, of course, but being sold down the river really meant that a slave would likely find him or herself in extremely harsh conditions.)
- Everyone except Roxy immediately confesses to having stolen the money.
- Percy tells them that, because he's such a nice guy and all, he'll sell them all locally instead of down the river. They kiss his feet for being so kind and generous (yes, for real—they literally throw themselves down and kiss this dude's feet. Eww).