“The lady thawt yo’ meant them fixin’s for her, Charley, instead of fo’ that mean speed-catcher.”
The sheriff took my name and address.
“Massachusetts?” he exclaimed. Then, all of a sudden, he shot back at me. “Yo’re a lawng ways from home!”
“I wish I were longer,” I said.
“Never mind, lady,” he said, soothingly and caressingly. “Yo’ give me twenty dollars now, and tell the jedge your story tomorrow, an’ seein’ as how you’re a stranger and a lady, he’ll give it all back to you.”
On that understanding, I paid him twenty dollars.
At three next afternoon, Toby and I sought the court-house to get our twenty dollars back, as agreed. The ante-room was filled with smoke from a group of Houstonians whose lurking smiles seemed to promise indulgence. The judge was old and impassive, filmed with an absent-mindedness hard to penetrate. Yet he, too, had a lurking grin which he bit off when he spoke.
“Yo’ are charged with exceeding the speed limit at a rate of fo’ty-five miles an hour.”
“Your Honor, this was my first day in the State, and I hadn’t learned your traffic laws.”
He looked up over his spectacles. “Yo’re from Massachusetts?”