"When are you going to change your seat and stop making me feel like a very thin pancake?"
"W'en Ah done get mah mind made up."
"When you have your mind made up about—-what?"
"About w'at I'se gwine do wid yo', Massa Reade."
"Well, what do you think you're going to do with me?" insisted Tom. "I'll admit, Sambo, that I'm about losing my patience. Unless you get up off of me soon, and move away to a respectful distance, I shall be obliged to do something on my own account."
"Go as far as yo' like, massa," returned the negro, unmoved. "I'se boun' ter admit dat yo' done got me fo' curiosity. W'at yo' done think yo' can do?"
Plainly the negro meant to go on having sport with him. Tom decided that it would be of no use to try to deceive this great mountain of black flesh. So Reade, who had been doing some brisk thinking during the last few moments, gave a sudden heave—-a trick that he retained from the old football days.
Much to Sambo's surprise he found himself going. Yet the black man was as agile as he was big. He leaped to his feet, bounding one step sideways, while Tom, who had been watching for this very chance, sprang to his own feet.
"Not so fas', massa!" mocked the big black, reaching out and taking a strong clutch on. Tom's coat collar.
Reade would have squirmed out of his coat and placed more distance between them, but Mr. Ebony, with a stout twist, gathered the two ends of the coat collar, holding the young engineer as though in the noose of a halter.