"As soon as Joe returns with my dear sister's property: to-morrow, I hope."
"You can take Huldy Bruington if you pay my price for her: two thousand dollars down. If you won't give it, she shall be married to some young kidnapper, who will fetch twice that pile for her in niggers. They'll all fight their weight in black wildcats to git her."
"Very, very abrupt proposition, Patty; not conservative at all. What's the matter with you, dame, to-day. Van Dorn not lucky, heigh?"
He gave her a vitreous smile and watched her over his round paunch, on which a crystal watch-seal hung, like a more human eye than his own. Her color began to rise.
"I'm mad," said Patty Cannon; "don't worry me; don't Jew me! Do you mind? Yes, Van Dorn has been whipped—by niggers, too. Will you pay my price or not?"
"Tut, tut, good woman! What can I want with a white girl. It wouldn't look conservative at all in Baltimore."
Patty Cannon stamped her foot.
"Don't rouse me with any of your hypocritical cant, Cunnil McLane! What have you been teachin' that child to read an' write fur—out of your Bible, too? What do you bring her presents fur, and hang around us when we know you despise us all, except fur the black folks we can sell you cheap? Haven't I been sold to men like you time and again before I was a woman, and don't I know the sneaking pains that old men take to look benevolent when youth an' beauty is fur sale; and how they pet it to keep it pure fur their own selfish enjoyment? God knows I do!"
"Patty, you shock me!" the rubicund gentleman observed. "I have always found you conservative before. Now, go and send sweet Hulda here, and, for Heaven's sake, Patty, don't reveal this bargain to her."
"Is it a bargain, Cunnil?"