But I have been a
truant husband, and my tongue is parched by dusty rovings in prodigal
ways. Let me woo her again with all my might!"
He walked through Princess Anne, worship now having commenced in all the
churches, and saw nobody upon the street except a divided group before
the tavern. There he heard Jimmy Phoebus speak to Levin Dennis
sharply:
"Levin, what you doin' with that nigger buyer? Ain't you got no Dennis
pride left in you?"
The Judge saw that Joe Johnson, safe from civil process on Sunday, even
if his enemy had not been helpless in bed, was washing Levin Dennis's
brandy-sickened head under the street pump, plying the pump-handle and
shampooing him with alternate hands.
"Jimmy," answered Levin, when he was free from the spout, "this
gentleman's give me a job. I'm goin' to take him out for tarrapin on the
Sound. He's goin' to pay me for it."
"Tarrapin-catchin' on a Sunday ain't no respectable job for a Dennis,
nohow," cried Jimmy Phoebus, bluntly; "an' doin' it with a nigger
buyer is a fine splurge fur you, by smoke! I can't see where your pride
is, Levin, to save my life."
Jack Wonnell, wearing a bell-crown, looked on with timid enjoyment of
this plain talk, opening his mouth to grin, shutting it to shudder.
The big stranger, dropping Levin Dennis, strode in his long jack-boots,
in which his coarse trousers were stuffed, right to the front of Jimmy
Phoebus, and glared at him through his inflamed and unsightly eye.
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