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 As a matter of fact, Jim Pink was a sort of semi-professional minstrel. Ordinarily, he ran a pressing-shop in the Niggertown crescent, but occasionally he impressed all the dramatic talent of Niggertown and really did take the road with a minstrel company. These barn-storming expeditions reached down into Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Sometimes they proved a great success, and the darkies rode back several hundred dollars ahead. Sometimes they tramped back.

Jim Pink hailed Peter with a wave of his hand and a grotesque displacement of his mouth to one side of his face, which he had found effective in his minstrel buffoonery.

“Whut you raisin' so much dus' about?” he called out of the corner of his mouth, while looking at Peter out of one half-closed eye.

Peter shook his head and smiled.

“Thought it mout be Mister Hooker deliverin' dat lan' you bought.” Jim Pink flung his long, flexible face into an imitation of convulsed laughter, then next moment dropped it into an intense gravity and declared, “'Dus' thou art, to dus' returnest.'” The quotation seemed fruitless and silly enough, but Jim Pink tucked his head to one side as if listening intently to himself, then repeated sepulchrally, “'Dus' thou art, to dus' returnest.' By the way, Peter,” he broke off cheerily, “you ain't happen to see Tump Pack, is you?”

“No,” said Peter, unamused.