"It's three feet thick, but they went through it, and all the way under the street, with only a few case-knives and a dust-pan."
"Wal, they war smart. But, keeper, whar' wus yer eyes all o' thet time? Down our way, ef a man couldn't see twenty Yankees a-wuckin' so fur six weeks, by daylight, in a clar place like this yere, we'd reckon he warn't fit ter 'tend a pen o' niggers."
The Judge whispered, "You're overdoing it. Hold in." Turner winced like a struck hound, but, smothering his wrath, smilingly replied,—
"The place wasn't clear then. It was filled with straw and rubbish. The Yankees covered the opening with it, and hid away among it when any one was coming. I caught two of them down here one day, but they pulled the wool over my eyes, and I let them off with a few days in a dungeon. But that fellow Streight would outwit the Devil. He was the most unruly customer I've had in the twenty months I've been here. I put him in keep, time and again, but I never could cool him down."
"Whar' is the keeps?" I asked. "Ye's got lots o' them, ha'n't ye?"
"No,—only six. Step this way, and I'll show you."
"Talk better English," said the Judge, as we fell a few paces behind Turner on our way to the front of the building. "There are some schoolmasters in Georgia."
"Wal, thar' ha'n't,—not in the part I come from."
The dungeons were low, close, dismal apartments, about twelve feet square, boarded off from the remainder of the cellar, and lighted only by a narrow grating under the sidewalk. Their floors were incrusted with filth, and their walls stained and damp with the rain, which, in wet weather, had dripped down from the street.
"And how many does ye commonly lodge yere, when yer hotel's full?" I asked.