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 He was clearly reproducing the action which had won for him his military medal. Then suddenly he fell down in the dust and writhed. He was mimicking with a ghastly realism the death-throes of his four victims. His audience howled with mirth at this dumb show of the bayonet-fight and of killing four men. Tump himself got up out of the dust with tears of laughter in his eyes. Peter caught the end of his sentence, “Sho put it to 'em, black boy. Fo' white men—”

His audience roared again, swayed around, and pounded one another in an excess of mirth.

Siner shouted from across the street two or three times before he caught Tump's attention. The ex-soldier looked around, sobered abruptly.

“Whut-chu want, nigger?” His inquiry was not over-cordial.

Peter nodded him across the street.

The heavily built black in khaki hesitated a moment, then started across the street with the dragging feet of a reluctant negro. Peter looked at him as he came up.

“What's the matter, Tump?” he asked playfully.

“Ain't nothin' matter wid me, nigger.”

Peter made a guess at Tump's surliness.

“Look here, are you puffed up because Cissie Dildine struck you for a ten?”

Tump's expression changed.

“Is she struck me fuh a ten?”