Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/36

24 so 's they won't have to pay you. See? An' everybody's happy. Eh? Dream on, you damn fool."

Joel studied on it; his smiling confidence had gone as suddenly as a child's. Then he perked up with: "What 's the matteh why Ah cain't tell 'em Ah lied about it, if Ah wants to gait out? Ah can do that. They 's got nuthin' on me but what Ah says so, boss."

"You 'll never get the chanct to open your fool mouth about it, nigger," Johns replied.

His indifference was convincing. After a frowning interval, Joel observed more plaintively: "He's suhely requiahed to play squah with me. Ah suttenly stood by mah promises. Ah suttenly did."

To which Johns sneered: "You suttenly are one big fool nigger-man. You suttenly are."

He rested complacently in the cushioned seat with his eyes closed, and enjoyed hearing the negro shift and mutter to himself. Every mile or so, Joel would break out: "Mebbe Ah nevah wrecked no train, boss." And Johns would reply: "You swore you did, nigger, an' we got to believe you." Or: "Mebbe Ah nevah seen this heah Sam in all mah bo'n days;" and Johns would reply: "Well, I 'll interduce you, bo. You 're goin' to spend the rest o' your 'bo'n days' locked up with him." Or, more desperately: "Cain't Ah do nothin' 'bout it, boss?" And still more cheerfully: "You 've done your doin's, Joel. You 're a gone nigger."

After forty miles of this sort of "third degree," Joel was a worried-looking, mulatto-colored son of slavery