Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/285

 and the interpreters flung Odok bodily into the crowd. "Git back, an' 'low somebody else a chance."

Feeding these Shilluks on fish was no case of preparing dainty tid-bits. It took man's size eating for these fellows. Zack massed his reserve fish in two dishpans, "Now, den, one mo' gen'leman step forward. Tell 'em dat, Side."

That was easy. Said only beckoned, and the hungry horde did the rest, rushing against the shack with mouths wide open, and Odok fighting for a front position.

"Quit yo' shovin'!" Zack hollered. "Ev'ybody gwine to git a taste." So the Black Effendi sallied out with a heaped-up plate, and his customers met him. They jostled his arm; the fish spilled, and a tangle of black nakedness fell upon it in the dirt.

Old Reliable retreated within his eating house while the blacks came crowding forward. The pressure of their bodies bent the rail. "Stand back, you niggers, stan' back!" The rail snapped like a pipe-stem, the Shilluks tumbled in, over turning his bench and knocking his table crank-sided; plates and pans clattered to the ground; the shack titled dangerously, and that got Zack agitated.

"Here, niggers, take it all! Take it all!" Old Reliable grabbed both dishpans and hurled their