“Naw!” Pipe Smash said disgustedly. “White folks won’t buy no nigger’s boat, an’ niggers ain’t got no money.”
“How financial do a nigger got to be to pick up a good, cheap, han’-me-down boat?” Skeeter asked cautiously.
“Well, suh, I figger it out dis way,” Pipe Smash said, boring the middle finger of his right hand into the palm of his left hand for emphasis. “I bought dat whole boat jes’ as she floats from a white man whut picked a fuss wid de cote-house an’ had to run in a direction whar de river didn’t go. It costed me two hundred dollars ten year ago, an’ is some wore out. One hundred dollars in cash spondulix gits her now.”
Skeeter glanced at the faces of his three friends and each responded with a slight nod. Skeeter made a careful advance.
“Ef I jes’ knowed somepin ’bout how to run a steamboat—” he began.
“Don’t none of you niggers know nothin’ ’bout steam-engines?” Pipe asked, in a peculiar voice.
“Naw!” they said in a chorus.
A peculiar expression passed over Pipe’s face.
Skeeter’s quick eyes caught the look, and he rightly concluded that Pipe was going to take advantage of their ignorance to cheat them.
“’Tain’t no trouble to learn how to run ’em,” Pipe remarked. “All you got to do is to keep fire in de furnace an’ water in de b’iler, an’ hol’ to de steerin’-wheel an’ stay in de river.”