Before that was Ida May, and now here was her younger sister.
Peter wondered if any man ever reached the peace and happiness
foreshadowed in his dream of a woman.
* * * * *
A voice calling his name checked Peter's stride mechanically, and caused
him to look about with the slight bewilderment of a man aroused from a
reverie.
At the first sound, however, Jim Pink became suddenly alert. He took
three strides ahead of Peter, and as he went he whispered over his
shoulder:
"Beat it, nigger! beat it!"
The mulatto recognized one of Jim Pink's endless stupid attempts at
comedy. It would be precisely Jim Pink's idea of a jest to give Peter a
little start. As the mulatto stood looking about among the cedars for
the person who had called his name, it amazed him that Jim Pink could be
so utterly insane; that he performed some buffoonery instantly, by
reflex action as it were, upon the slightest provocation. It was almost
a mania with Jim Pink; it verged on the pathological.
The clown, however, was pressing his joke.
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