The old woman started, but swiftly recovered her composure, if such it could be called, and flourished her stick wildly.
“Tell you what, buckra,” she yelled; “you go ’way. No bodder me no mo’. Me, Mother Jenny,’ ’spectable woman. Wha’ yo’ t’ink, buckra, yo’ fren’ come to harm by my place?”
“I didn’t say so. I merely asked the name of the hackman who drove them away?”
Sam knew how important it was to keep his temper with the old crone.
“How much it wort’ yo’ fo’ me to impart dat imflumation?” asked the old woman, leering hideously through a cloud of smoke she blew out of her wrinkled old lips.
“I’ll pay you well for it,” struck in De Garros, who had cabled for and received a large remittance. Poor Sam was almost “broke.”
“Fi’ dollar?”
De Garros nodded. The old hag stretched out a shriveled claw.
“Gib me de money, buckra,” she croaked; “gib me de money here in dis hand.”
“There you are,” said De Garros with a gesture of disgust and annoyance.