"Two bits faw two."
Bascom shook his head. There was only one way in which those melons could be had. After some argument Sonny and his little brother repaired to the fig-trees, each with a chunk of melon in one hand and a basket in the other. Sonny Ladnier was big enough to have tried to bully Bascom, but the people on the bay had a respectable fondness for him, not to mention his partner.
During the hour, Narcisse Fontaine, big Noel Roget, Rubier Peer, who came to look for Peter, and Patrice Rodriguez, with his pointed beard and his reputation for duelling, added themselves to Bascom's force behind the Captain's house, and the figs were fairly charmed from the trees. Bascom did not think it safe to leave the melon pile for more than a moment at a time, and he was sitting alone beside it, and had just cleaved open the crack of a long striped "rattlesnake," when a strange schooner passed by a length or two, then came about, and anchored off the point. She was the Luna May, from Pass Christian, and he had never seen her before. As three men got down in her tender he could hear their voices as plainly as if they were talking to him.
"'Cose dey sell dem. Wat dey have dem faw?"
"Bud we got no money. We spen' it all las' night."
"We can trade 'im out of some. I give my knife faw one o' dem big ones. It's a terrib' hot day. Dat little chap be mighty easy to bargain wid. Yo' see."
"You see," echoed Bascom, chuckling, as they left their skiff, and came sauntering up to him. "Somethin' I can do for you gentlemans to-day?" he inquired.
"Whose is dese melons?" asked the first schooner-man.
"Mine, jus' now," said Bascom.
"Aw, get away."