Vinegar Atts, appalled to the core of his ecclesiastical soul by this thunderous fulmination of anathema, picked up his whitewash bucket and slunk away.
Turning a distant corner, he stopped and peeped behind him.
“Lawdymussy!” he sighed. “Dat yuther man is done j’ined in now! Dem white mens is shore tellin’ Gawd all about us niggers!”
Ten minutes later, Rouke, having relieved his mind, looked up and grinned at Pellet.
“Peter,” he said in a quiet voice, “would you mind leading me to the private office of Colonel Tom Gaitskill in the Tickfall bank? Since I’ve been associating with the negro inhabitants of this village, I don’t believe I have sense enough to find that office.”
IV
STUNT STUFF!
Five personages arrived at the fishing camp on Lake Basteneau early the next morning.
First came Rev. Vinegar Atts and Miss Cordona’s New Orleans lover, the latter wearing clothes of the newest model and a slick smile of the most recent duplicity—a tall, slim, smooth-faced negro of the typical Ethiopian features and the air of a race-track tout.
Next came Miss Lalla Cordona in a hired buggy, as dressy as a cheap Christmas doll, radiant with smiles and quivering with vivacity and vital magnetism.
Then an automobile puffed along the swamp road and stopped in front of the camp and Shirley Rouke and Peter Pellet dismounted and unloaded their moving picture cameras.