“Dar now!” Mustard declared with unction. “Mo’ bad luck! It ’pears like it’s jes’ sorrer piled on top of sorrer in dis here grief-strucken-down worl’. I’s shore sorry, Marse Tom—”
“The reason I wanted you to sleep in that store was to guard that safe.”
“Hol’ on dar, Marse Tom,” Mustard said, coming quickly to his own defense. “You didn’t say me no words ’bout dat safe. All you said wus: ‘I want you to sleep in dis sto’ to-night.’ Ain’t dat so?”
“Yes.”
“Well, suh, I done it. I done it fur a fack. I done jes’ whut you tole me. I sleeped in de sto’.”
“That’s a fact,” Flournoy chuckled, imitating the negro’s mode of speech: “Dat’s whut he done!”
“I’se sorry, Marse Tom,” Mustard said, “but I ain’t to blame.”
Sheriff Flournoy looked at his watch.
“Look here, Tom,” he said. “If we are going to find the money, we’d better let this sorry son of sorrow skedaddle. He ain’t got it.”
Mustard showed that he favored the sheriff’s suggestion by rising to his feet with alacrity.