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 aside and spake with him lowly and mysteriously. He nodded decisively, and then said aloud to Whistling Dick:

“Listen, sonny, to some plain talky-talk. We five are on a lay. I’ve guaranteed you to be square, and you’re to come in on the profits equal with the boys, and you’ve got to help. Two hundred hands on this plantation are expecting to be paid a week’s wages to-morrow morning. To-morrow’s Christmas, and they want to lay off. Says the boss: ‘Work from five to nine in the morning to get a train load of sugar off, and I’ll pay every man cash down for the week and a day extra.’ They say: ‘Hooray for the boss! It goes.’ He drives to Noo Orleans to-day, and fetches back the cold dollars. Two thousand and seventy-four fifty is the amount. I got the figures from a man who talks too much, who got ’em from the bookkeeper. The boss of this plantation thinks he’s going to pay this wealth to the hands. He’s got it down wrong; he’s going to pay it to us. It’s going to stay in the leisure class, where it belongs. Now, half of this haul goes to me, and the other half the rest of you may divide. Why the difference? I represent the brains. It’s my scheme. Here’s the way we’re going to get it. There’s some company at supper in the house, but they’ll leave about nine. They’ve just happened in for an hour or so. If they don’t go pretty soon, we’ll work the scheme anyhow. We want all night to get away good with the dollars. They’re heavy. About nine o’clock Deaf Pete and Blinky’ll go down the road about a quarter beyond the house, and set fire to a big cane-field there that the cutters have n’t touched yet. The