“Naw, suh, ’twas bad luck,” Vinegar said mournfully. “You see, Hitch is a member of dat church cormittee, an’ he’s gwine vote agin me because I picked up de job whut he drapped.”
“Lawd,” Skeeter sighed. “You is like a snake whut’s got his tail in his mouf—jes’ spinnin’ aroun’ yo’se’f in a circuous ring!”
Vinegar picked up his hat and stood up.
“I got to mosey up to Marse Tom’s, Skeeter,” he said. “De kunnel is gwine hab big comp’ny tonight. I’s much obleeged fer yo’ pity in my many troubles.”
“Pick up a brave heart, Vinegar,” Skeeter said encouragingly. “Mebbe de good Lawd will pervide.”
“I ain’t so certain ’bout dat, Skeeter,” Vinegar replied gloomily, as he walked out of the yard. “It looks to me mighty like Proverdunce is done busted a dynamite cap under my shirt!”
Four men sat around the table in the Gaitskill dining-room. The covers had been removed, and they were devoting themselves to an evening of boyish frolic. Everything went.
There was Colonel Tom Gaitskill, an ideal host, courtly, genial, whose fountains of humor never went dry, making him eternally young. Near him sat the Reverend Dr. Sentelle, eloquent, scholarly, whose fine face, seamed and wrinkled with suffering, was written all over with the literature of experience. Across the table was John Flournoy, the sheriff whose reputation exceeded the boundaries of the State, a man with a giant’s form and strength, a woman’s tenderness, and the courage of a host of jungle beasts.
And the guest of honor for the evening was Gaitskill’s life-long friend, Captain Lemuel Manse, a retired millionaire, who had received his title from the fact that he was owner of that beautiful sea-going yacht, whose keel had cut the waters of every sea upon the globe, and which had brought to Tickfall the never-to-be-forgotten Diada.