It's doin' what the Algerynes does in
fair fighting. You're a fine American citizen, ain't you? I know your
gang, and a bloody one it is, but you can't look a white man in the eye,
because you're a thief and a coward!"
The Hellenic nature of the bay captain had never displayed itself to the
Judge with this fulness, and he felt some natural admiration as he took
Phoebus by the arm.
"Well, well!" said the Judge, "let him go now, Phoebus! Mr. Johnson,
don't let me see you in Princess Anne again to-day. Continue your
journey and disturb us no more, or I shall put criminal process upon
you, and you see we have stout constables in Somerset."
As he led Phoebus around the corner of the bank, the Judge said:
"James, my wife is so sick that I must keep house with her this morning,
and I want a little note left at the church for Mr. Tilghman. Will you
take it?"
"Why, with pleasure, Judge," the nonchalant villager replied. "I don't
look very handsome in the 'piscopal church, but I'll do a' arrand."
As the Judge wrote the note with his gold pencil on a leaf of his
memorandum book, he said:
"James, did you identify that man yesterday?"
"Yes, I knowed him as soon as he come to the tavern. This mornin',
seein' of him around town, I was afear'd Samson Hat would stumble on
him, and the nigger buyer would kill him for yisterday's blow. Thinks I:
'Samson is too white a nigger to be killed that way, by smoke!' but the
prejudice agin a nigger hittin' a white man is sich in this state that
Joe Johnson, bloody as he is, would never have stretched hemp for Samson
Hat; so I picked a quarrel with the nigger buyer to take the fight out
of him before Samson should come.
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