The sheriff remained silent for so long that the negro imagined he had been forgotten. Then Flournoy fired a question so unexpectedly that the black man winced: "What's your name?"
"Dey calls me Plaster Sickety."
"Gosh!" the sheriff exploded. "Can any woman be induced to exchange a perfectly decent name for a smear like that?"
"Suttinly," the negro grinned. "Dat gal's name ain't so awful cute. Dey calls her Pearline Flunder."
"Plaster Sickety and Pearline Flunder—help, everybody! What sort of children will issue from a matrimonial alliance of such names?"
"I reckin our chillun will all be borned Huns, Marse John; but I cain't he'p it."
Under his manipulation the sheriff's worn handcuffs took on a polish like new. At intervals he glanced up from his task to see the sunlight spraying from the pecan-trees like water and the heat rising from the ground, visible as a boiling cloud. Once he heard an eagle scream, and glanced toward the Little Mocassin swamp to behold a black speck sail into the haze that hung like a curtain of purple and gold upon the horizon. The negro sat motionless except for glowing black eyes restless as mercury and all-perceiving.
Suddenly the bear-trap mouth of the big sheriff twisted into a little smile.
"How'd you like to give your girl one of these things for a wedding-present, Plaster?" he asked, as he tossed a polished pair of handcuffs on the step beside the negro.
"I's kinder pestered in my mind 'bout gittin' a fitten weddin'-present, Marse John, but—" Plaster rose to his feet and returned the manacles without completing his sentence.