All the afternoon Pap Curtain played trombone solos on the streets of Kerlerac while Mustard Prophet rested his feet.
About four o’clock Mustard and Pap slipped into a negro eating-house and ordered food.
“Whar you cullud pussons come from?” Smart Durret, the negro restaurant keeper, inquired as his patrons consumed large quantities of fried catfish.
“We stays at Tickfall,” Mustard answered.
“When did you-alls arrive down?”
“We come dis mawnin’,” Pap responded.
At this point another occupant of the restaurant rose from a table in one corner of the room, gesticulated mysteriously and forcibly to Smart Durret and went out of a rear door into the kitchen. The mulatto proprietor followed.
“Don’t ax so many questions, Smart,” was the prompt advice of the little negro to the mulatto. “I wucks fer Sheriff Ulloa, an’ I heard tell dis mawnin’ dat somebody robbed a sto’ in Tickfall an’ dey’s offered a hunderd-dollar reward-bill fer who done it.”
Smart Durret’s mud-colored eyes opened wide.
“Dat sto’ was robbed Saddy night,” the little negro continued. “Dem two coons come to town dis mawnin’ early. Dey been takin’ turns hidin’ on de yuther side of de levee all day. Dem niggers is shore it.”