“And so you think,” said Underwood, speaking as if he had not heard Joe-Bob’s remarks about the cigar—“and so you think Judge Bascom has come to buy the old Place.”
“No, no!” said Joe-Bob, with a quick deprecatory gesture. “Oh, no, Squire! not by no means! No, no! I never said them words. What I did say was that it’s been talked up an’ down that the old Judge is a-gwine to try to git his prop’ty back. That’s what old Major Jimmy Bass said he heard, an’ I thinks, says I, he’ll have to be monst’us peart ef he gits ahead of Squire Underwood. That’s what I said to myself, an’ then I ast old Major Jimmy, says I, what the Judge would do wi’ the prop’ty arter he got it, an’ Major Jimmy, he ups an’ says, says he, that the old Judge would sell it back to Frank Underwood, says he.”
The young man threw back his head and laughed heartily, not less at the comical earnestness of Joe-Bob Grissom than at the gossip of Major Jimmy Bass.
“It seems, then, that we are going to have lively times around here,” said Underwood, by way of comment.
“Yes, siree,” exclaimed Joe-Bob; “that’s what Major Jimmy Bass allowed. Do you reckon, Squire,” he continued, lowering his voice as though the matter was one to be approached cautiously, “do you reckon, Squire, they could slip in on you an’ trip you up wi’ one of ’em writs of arousement or one of ’em bills of injectment?”
“Not unless they catch me asleep,” replied Underwood, still laughing. “We get up very early in the morning on this Place.”
“Well,” said Joe-Bob Grissom, “I ain’t much of a lawyer myself, an’ so I thought I’d jest drap in an’ tell you the kind of talk what they’ve been a-rumorin’ ’roun’. But I’ll tell you what you kin do, Squire. Ef the wust comes to the wust, you kin make the old Judge an’ the gal take you along wi’ the Place. Now them would be my politics.”
With that Joe-Bob gave young Underwood a nudge in the short ribs, and chuckled to such an extent that he nearly strangled himself with cigar smoke.
“I think I would have the best of the bargain,” said the young man.
“Now you would! you reely would!” exclaimed Joe-Bob in all seriousness. “I can’t tell you the time when I ever seed a likelier gal than that one wi’ the Judge this evenin’. As we say down here in Georgia, she’s the top of the pot an’ the pot a-b’ilin’. I tell you that right pine-blank.”