"And how'll we keep folks from hearing the sawing?"
"By dancing and singing while Baykins here" (alluding to a "pore white" fiddler who had almost killed a man at a dance) "while Baykins here plays 'whip the devil.'"
The very next day we began dancing and singing and taking turns at the chuckhole bar.
"Whip the Devil" is an interminable tune like the one about the "old woman chasing her son round the room with a broom."...
The mistake was, that in our eagerness we "whipped the devil" too long at a time. Naturally, the jailer grew suspicious of such sudden and prolonged hilarity. But even at that it took almost a week for them to catch on. We knew it was all up when, one morning at breakfast, the sheriff came in with the jailer.
"Boys, all back into your cells!" he growled.
The long bar was thrown over our closed doors.
The sheriff stooped down and inspected the chuck-hole.
"Why, Jesus Christ, they'd of been through in two more nights. It's good we caught them in time or they'd of been a hell of a big jail-delivery ... do you mean to tell me," turning to the jailer, "you never noticed this before?" and with one finger he raked out the blackened corn bread.
"You see, I'm a little near-sighted, Mistah Jenkins."