“Oh! he beliebed it, an’ he says, says he, ‘I’s griebed to hear it, Mis’r Amstrung, an’ ob course you cannot ’spect me to gib my consent to my darter marryin’ a beggar!’ O Quash, w’en I hears dat—I—bu’sted a’most! I do beliebe if I’d bin ’longside o’ dat kurnel at dat momint I hab gib him a most horrible smack in de face.”
“De skownril!” muttered Quashy between his clenched teeth. “But what happen arter dat, Sooz’n?”
“Nuffin happen. Only poor massa he look bery sad, an’ says, says he, ‘Kurnel, I’s come to say farewell. I would not t’ink ob asking your consent to such a marriage, but I do ask you to hold out de hope dat if I ebber comes back agin wid a kumpitincy, (don’ know ’zactly what dat is, but dat’s what he called it)—wid a kumpitincy, you’ll not forbid me payin’ my ’dresses to your darter.’ What he wants to pay her dresses for, an’ why he calls dem his dresses, is more nor I can guess, but das what he say, an’ de kurnel he says, says he, ‘No, Mis’r Amstrung, I’ll not hold out no sich hope. It’s time enough to speak ob dat when you comes back. It’s bery kind ob you to sabe my darter’s life, but—’ an’ den he says a heap more, but I cou’n’t make it rightly out, I was so mad.”
“When dey was partin’, he says, says he, ‘Mis’r Amstrung, you mus’ promise me not to ’tempt to meet my darter before leaving.’ I know’d, by de long silence and den by de way he speak dat Massa Lawrence no like dat, but at last he says, says he, ‘Well, kurnel, I do promise dat I’ll make no ’tempt to meet wid her,’ an’ den he hoed away. Now, Quashy, what you t’ink ob all dat?”
“I t’ink it am a puzzler,” replied the negro, his face twisted up into wrinkles of perplexity. “I’s puzzled to hear dat massa tell a big lie by sayin’ he’s a beggar, an’ den show dat it’s a lie by offerin’ to pay for de kurnel’s darter’s dresses. It’s koorious, but white folk has sitch koorious ways dat it’s not easy to understan’ dem. Let’s be t’ankful, Sooz’n, you an’ me, that we’re bof black.”
“So I is, Quash, bery t’ankful, but what’s to be dooed? Is massa to go away widout sayin’ good-bye to Miss Manuela?”
“Cer’nly not,” cried the negro, with sudden energy, seizing his wife’s face between his hands, and giving her lips a smack that resounded over the place—to the immense delight of several little Gaucho boys, who, clothed in nothing but ponchos and pugnacity, stood gazing at the couple.
Quashy jumped up with such violence that the boys in ponchos fled as he hurried along the street with his bride, earnestly explaining to her as he went, his new-born plans.
At the same moment that this conversation was taking place, Lawrence Armstrong and Pedro—alias Conrad of the Mountains—were holding equally interesting and perhaps more earnest converse over two pots of coffee in a restaurant.
“I have already told you, senhor,” said Pedro, “that old Ignacio followed us thus hotly, and overtook us as it happened so opportunely, for the purpose of telling me of a piece of good fortune that has just been sent to me.”