“Well, I'm sorry you've had your breakfast,” Floyd said, “for I wanted you to go down with me.”
“No, thankee”—Pole shrugged his shoulders and smiled—“I tried that last night in yore place, an' thar was so many niggers in burial suits standin' round that big room that it looked like resurrection day in a coon graveyard. The damned idiots stared at me as ef they thought I'd blowed in off'n a load o' hay. They passed me from one to t'other like coals o' fire on a shovel till they landed me in a corner whar nobody wouldn't see me.”
Floyd laughed. “You are all right, Pole; don't you ever let that fact escape you.”
“Do you think so, Nelson? Well, anyway, a biggity nigger waiter tried to take me down once when I was here, about a year ago. I'd heard a good deal o' talk about that fine eatin'-room down the street whar only the big Ikes git the'r grub, an', wantin' a snack, I drapped in an' hung up my hat. The head coon tuck me to a table whar some other fellows was eatin', an' another one made me a present of a handkerchief an' shoved a card under my nose. The card had lots o' Dutch on it, an' I was kinder flustered, but as the nigger looked like he understood our language, I told 'im to never mind the printin' but to fetch me two fried eggs an' a cup o' coffee an' free bread, ef he had it, an' ef not to charge it in the bill. Well, sir, after I'd give the order, the coon still stood thar, tryin' his level best to turn up his flat nose; so I axed 'im what he was waitin' fer, an' he sneered an' axed me ef that was all I expected to eat. I told 'im it was, an', with a grin at the coon at the next table, he shuffled off. Well, you know, I was hot under the collar, an' I seed that the other men at the table looked like they was with me, though they didn't chip in. Purty soon my waiter come back with my order, an', with a sniff, he set it down. It looked like he thought jest to be a lackey in a fine house like that was next to wearin' wings an' flyin' over golden streets. He axed me ag'in ef that was all I wanted, an' when I said it was he give another sniff, an' drawed out a pad an' writ down twenty-five cents on it in great big figures, an' tore off the leaf an' drapped it in front o' my plate. 'Mighty small bill,' he said. 'Yes,' said I, 'that order 'ud 'a' cost fifty cents in a fust-class place, but I was busy an' didn't have time to go any furder.' Well, sir, them men in front o' me jest hollered. They banged on the table with the'r knives an' plates, an' yelled till everybody in the room stood up to see what was the matter. One big, fat, jolly-faced man with a red, bushy mustache in front of me re'ched his paw clean across the table an' said: 'Put 'er thar, white man; damn it, put 'er thar!' I tuck a drink with 'im when we went out. He tried to buy me a five-dollar hat to remember 'im by, but I wouldn't take it.”
Floyd laughed heartily. He had finished dressing. “Did you finally get it settled in your mind, Pole, why that old man didn't want to take my check last night?”
“Thar's a lots o' things I've got to git settled in my mind,” was the somewhat evasive reply. “I told you I was goin' to take the ten-thirty train fer Darley, but I ain't a-goin' a step till I've seed a little furder into this business. Looky' here, Nelson Floyd, fer a man that's had as much dealin's with men in all sorts o' ways as you have, you are a-actin' quar.”
“I don't understand you.” Floyd had put his hand on the latch to open the door, but, seeing his friend's serious face, he went back to the window wondering what Pole was driving at.
“You say,” said Pole, “that Henry A. Floyd came into his plantation at his daddy's death?”
“That's my impression, Pole.”
The mountaineer went to the cuspidor near the washstand and spat deliberately into it; then he came back wiping his lips on his long hand.