The logic of this argument, which was altogether lost on Chunky Riley, silenced Mr. Gossett, but did not convince him. There was a long pause, as if all three of the men were wrestling with peculiar thoughts. Finally Mr. Gossett spoke:—
"It ain't so much the nigger I'm after, but I want to show Abercrombie that I can't be outdone. He's laughing in his sleeve because I can't keep the nigger at home, and I'll be blamed"—here his voice sank to a confidential tone—"I'll be blamed if I don't believe that, between him and that son of his, they are harboring the nigger. Yes, sir, harboring is the word."
Mr. Jim Simmons threw down his lighted cigar with such energy as to cause the sparks to fly in all directions. A cigar was an unfamiliar luxury to Mr. Simmons, and he had had enough of it.
"Addison Abercrombie harboring a nigger!" exclaimed Mr. Simmons. "Why, Colonel, if every man, woman, and child in the United States was to tell me that I wouldn't believe it. Addison Abercrombie! Why, Colonel, though you're his next-door neighbor, as you may say, you don't know him half as well as I do. You ought to get acquainted with that man."
"Humph! I know him well enough, I reckon," responded Mr. Gossett. "I went to school with him. Folks get to know one another at school. He was always stuck up, trying to hold his head higher than anybody else because his daddy had money and a big plantation. I made my prop'ty myself; I earned every dollar; and I know how it came."
"But, Colonel!" Mr. Jim Simmons insisted, "Addison Abercrombie would hold his head high if he never seen a dollar, and he'd have the right to do it. Him harbor niggers? Shucks, Colonel! You might as well tell me that the moon ain't nothing but a tater pudding."
"What do you see in the man?" Mr. Gossett asked with some irritation in the tones of his voice.
There was a pause, as though Mr. Simmons was engaged in getting his thoughts together. Finally he said:—
"Well, Colonel, I don't reckon I can make it plain to you, because when I come to talk about it I can't grab the identical idee that would fit what I've got in my mind. But I'll tell you what's the honest truth, in my opinion—and I'm not by myself, by a long shot—Addison Abercrombie is as fine a man as ever trod shoe leather. That's what."