"Howdy do, Mistah Bruing, how de worle a treat yo'?"
"Oh, so so, gal."
Ella's eyes deserted the old man to light upon the shopkeeper sticking his black veiny hand in the brine for the salt beef, his back to her. With a stab to the breast, she noted the protrudent tip of the cork leg....
"Anything else, miss?" he asked, the brine dripping from his salt-crusted arm.
"Gahd, he are black in troot," Ella, mulatto Ella observed to herself; then aloud, "bettah giv' me a gill o' bakin' soda, I might wan' to make a cake."
"Look out dey, Poyah," mumbled Bruin, "gwine bring down dat salmon tin 'pon yo' head too."
"Oh dat can't hit me," Poyer replied, lowering the baking powder on the tip of the hook. "I's a man, man."
He faced Ella, piling up the goods on the counter. "I's a man, man," he said, meeting Ella's frosting eyes. "I wuz a brakesman in Palama, don't fomembah dat. I wuz de bes' train hooper on de Isthmus!"