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 Persimmon coming around the crescent. Peter called to the roustabout and asked about Tump Pack.

The Persimmon looked at Peter with his half-asleep, protruding eyeballs.

“Don' you know 'bout Tump Pack already, Mister Siner?”

“No.” Peter was astonished at the formality of the “Mr. Siner.”

“Then is you 'spectin' somp'n 'bout him?”

“Why, no, but I was asleep in there a moment ago, and somebody came along talking about Tump and Cissie. They—they aren't married, are they?”

“Oh, no-o, no-o-o, no-o-o-o-o.” The Persimmon waggled his bullet head slowly from side to side. “I heared Tump got into a lil trouble wid de jailer las' night.”

“Serious?”

“I dunno.” The Persimmon closed one of his protruding yellow eyes. “Owin' to whut you call se'ius; maybe whut I call se'ius wouldn't be se'ius to you at all; 'n 'en maybe whut you call se'ius would be ve'y insince'ius to Tump.” The roustabout's philosophy, which consisted in a monotonous recasting of a given proposition, trickled on and on in the cold wind. After a while it fizzled out to nothing at all, and the Persimmon asked in a queer manner: “Did you give Tump some women's clo'es, Peter?”

It was such an odd question that at first Peter was at loss; then he recalled Nan Berry's despatching Cissie