Peek, to serve some purpose of his own, here dropped his dignity entirely, and assumed the manner and language of the careless, rollicking plantation nigger. “Yah! yah!” laughed he. “Wall, look a-he-ah, Kunnle Delancy Hyde. Les make a trade,—we two,—and git rid of the policeman altogedder. I can sabe yer fifty dollars, shoo-er-r-r, Kunnle Delancy Hyde, if you’ll do as how dis nigger tells yer to.”
“How’ll yer do it, Peek?” asked the Colonel, much pacified by the slave’s repetition of his entire name and title.
“I’ll promise to be a good nigger all the way to Cincinnati, and not try to run away,—no, not wunst,—if you’ll pay me twenty-five dollars.”
“Will yer sign to that, Peek, and put in, ‘So help me Gawd’?” asked the Colonel.
Peek started, and looked sharply at Hyde; and then quietly replied, “Yes, I’ll do it, if you’ll gib me the money to do with as I choose; but you must agree to le’m me write a letter, and put it in the post-office afore we leeb.”
The Colonel considered the matter a moment, then turned to Charlton, and said, “Draw up an agreement, and let the nigger sign it, and be sure and put in, ‘So help me Gawd.’”
The arrangement was speedily concluded. The witnesses and the officers were paid off. Charlton received his fifty dollars and Peek his twenty-five. The slave then asked for pen, ink, and paper, and placed five cents on the table as payment. In two minutes he finished a letter to Flora, and enclosed it with the money in an envelope, on which he wrote an address. Charlton tried hard to get a sight of it, but Peek did not give him a chance to do this.
The Colonel and Peek then walked to the post-office, where the slave deposited his letter; after which they passed over to Jersey City in the ferry-boat, and took the train to Philadelphia.
As for Charlton, no sooner had his company left him, than he seized his hat, locked up his office, and hurried to Greenwich Street, where he proceeded to examine the lodgings vacated by Peek. He found Mrs. Petticum engaged in collecting into baskets the various articles abandoned to her by the negroes,—old dusters, a hod of charcoal, kindling-wood, loaves of bread, and small collections of groceries, sufficient for the family for a week. Mrs. Petticum appeared to have been weeping, for she raised her apron and wiped her eyes as Charlton came in.
“Well, have they gone?” asked he.