The men went about their fun-making
leisurely, knowing quite well the negro could not get angry or make any
retort or leave the store, all of these methods of self-defense being
ruled out by custom.
"You must have forgot your cow was mortgaged, Bob."
"No-o-o, suh; I--I--I didn't fuhgit," drawling his vowels to a
prodigious length.
"Didn't you know you'd get into trouble?"
"No-o-o, suh."
"Know it now, don't you?"
"Ya-a-s, suh."
"Have a good time in jail, Bob?"
"Ya-a-s, suh. Shot cra-a-aps nearly all de time tull de jailer broke hit
up."
"Wouldn't he let you shoot any more?"
"No-o-o, suh; not after he won all our money." Here Bob flung up his
head, poked out his lips like a bugle, and broke into a grotesque, "Hoo!
hoo! hoo!" It was such an absurd laugh, and Bob's tale had come to such
an absurd denouement, that the white men roared, and shuffled their feet
on the flared base of the stove. Some spat in or near a box filled with
sawdust, and betrayed other nervous signs of satisfaction. When a man so
spat, he stopped laughing abruptly, straightened his face, and stared
emptily at the rusty stove until further inquisition developed some
other preposterous escapade in Bob's jail career.
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