It was all feasible, if I could only get hold of a slender piece of iron which I could shape into a lock-pick.

I could then undo the lumbering padlocks with which our chains were fastened, whenever I might choose.
But I never had any luck; no such thing ever happened to fall in my way.

However, my chance came at last.

A gentleman who had come twice before to dicker for me, without result, or indeed any approach to a result, came again.

I was far from expecting ever to belong to him, for the price asked for me from the time I was first enslaved was exorbitant, and always provoked either anger or derision, yet my master stuck stubbornly to it--twenty-two dollars.