Sunny. If there's a chance of it, there's not a planter round here who wouldn't lend you the whole cash, to keep your name and blood amongst us. Come, cheer up, old friend.
Mrs. P. Ah! Sunnyside, how good you are; so like my poor Peyton.
[Exit Mrs. Peyton and Sunnyside to house.
M'Closky. Curse their old families—they cut me—a bilious, conceited, thin lot of dried up aristocracy. I hate 'em. Just because my grandfather wasn't some broken-down Virginia transplant, or a stingy old Creole, I ain't fit to sit down with the same meat with them. It makes my blood so hot I feel my heart hiss. I'll sweep these Peytons from this section of the country. Their presence keeps alive the reproach against me that I ruined them; yet, if this money should come. Bah! There's no chance of it. Then, if they go, they'll take Zoe—she'll follow them. Darn that girl; she makes me quiver when I think of her; she's took me for all I'm worth.
Enter Zoe from house, L., with the desk.
O, here, do you know what annuity the old judge left you is worth to-day? Not a picayune.
Zoe. It's surely worth the love that dictated it; here are the papers and accounts. [Putting it on the table, R. C.]
M'Closky. Stop, Zoe; come here! How would you like to rule the house of the richest planter on Atchafalaya—eh? or say the word, and I'll buy this old barrack, and you shall be mistress of Terrebonne.
Zoe. O, sir, do not speak so to me!
M'Closky. Why not! look here, these Peytons are bust; cut 'em; I am rich, jine me; I'll set you up grand, and we'll give these first families here our dust, until you'll see their white skins shrivel up with hate and rage; what d'ye say?