"Ain't gwine get meself in no trouble. Go mixin' meself in de backra dem business—"
"Hey, Ballet, if yo' know wha' is good fo' yo'self, yo' bess min' yo' own business, yo' hear wha' me tell yo', yah."
"Wha' yo' got fi' do wit' it? De boy ain't got no business talkin' back to de marinah man—"
"Now he mek up he bed, let 'im lie down in it."
Shocked at sight of the mud the marine's boots left on the boy's dusty, crinkly head, Ballet mustered the courage of action. Some of the older heads passed on, awed, incredulous.
"Yo' gwine kill dat boy," said Ballet, staggering up to the marine.
"You mind yer own goddam business, Smarty, and go back to work," said the marine. He guided an unshaking yellow-spotted finger under the black's warm, dilating nostrils. "Or else—"
He grew suddenly deathly pale. It was a pallor which comes to men on the verge of murder. Mouth, the boy at issue, one of those docile, half-white San Andres coons, was a facile affair. Singly, red-bloodedly one handled it. But here, with this ugly, thick-lipped, board-chested upstart, there was need for handling of an errorless sort.
"I'll git you yet," the marine said, gazing at Ballet quietly, "I'll fill you full of lead yet, you black bastard!"
"Why yo' don't do it now," stuttered Ballet, taking a hesitating step forward, "yo' coward, yo'—a big able man lik' yo' beatin' a lil' boy lik' dat. Why yo' don' hit me? Betcha yo' don' put down yo' gun an' fight me lik' yo' got any guts."