The mate found an old one of his own, together with a long-tailed coat, much the worse for wear.
"Do you be taking these. They'll not be so likely to pick you up before ye can get up-town if ye look a little less like a hobo."
Griswold suffered a sudden return to the meliorating humanities.
"I've been calling you all the hard names I could lay tongue to, M'Grath, and there have been times when I would have given the price of a good farm for the privilege of standing up to you on a bit of green grass with nobody looking on. I take it all back. You say you haven't forgotten: neither will I forget, and maybe my turn will come again, some day."
"Go along with you," growled the rough-tongued Irishman, whose very kindness had a tang of brutality in it. "If you're coming across the naygur, Mose, anywhere, sind him back and tell him I'll see that he gets real money f'r helping us unload. Off with ye, now, whilst they're catching up with yer runaway cab."
Griswold went leisurely, as befitted his theory, and upon reaching the levee, turned aside among the freight pyramids in search of his confederate. Now that there was time to recall the facts he feared that the negro had been taken. He had secured but a few yards' start in the race, and his pursuer was a white man, able to back speed with intelligence. Griswold had a sickening fit of despair when he contemplated the possibility of failure with the goal almost in sight; and the reaction, when he stumbled upon the negro skulking in the shadows of a lumber cargo, was sharp enough to make him faint and dizzy.
The negro did not recognize him at first and was about to run away when Griswold shook off the benumbing weakness and called out.
"T'ank de good Lawd! is dat you-all, Cap'm Gravitt? I's dat shuck up I couldn' recconize my ol' mammy! Tek dishyer cunjah-bag o' yourn 'fo' I gwine drap hit. Hit's des been bu'nin' my han's ev' sense I done tuk out wid it!"
Griswold took the handkerchief bundle, and the mere touch of it put new life into him.