"I don't doubt it. You ought to have him under perfect control. I meant to tell you what a pretty frock you have on." The girl dimpled, and dropped him a little curtsy, half ironical and wholly graceful. Peter was charmed. "Now keep that way, Cissie, smiling and human, not so grammatical. I wish I had a brooch." "A brooch?" "I'd give it to you. Your dress needs a brooch, an old gold brooch at the bosom, just a glint there to balance your eyes." Cissie flushed happily, and made the feminine movement of concealing the V-shaped opening at her throat. "It's a pleasure to doll up for a man like you, Peter. You see a girl's good points--if she has any," she tacked on demurely. "Oh, just any man--" "Don't think it! Don't think it!" waved down Cissie, humorously. "But, Cissie, how is it possible--" "Just blind." Cissie rippled into a boarding-school laugh. "I could wear the whole rue del Opera here in Niggertown, and nobody would ever see it but you." Cissie was moving toward the door. Peter tried to detain her. He enjoyed the implication of Tump Pack's stupidity, in their badinage, but she would not stay. He was finally reduced to thanking her for her present, then stood guard as she tripped out into the grimy street. In the sunshine her glossy black hair and canary dress looked as trim and brilliant as the plumage of a chaffinch. Peter Siner walked back into the kitchen with the fixed smile of a man who is thinking of a pretty girl. The black dowager in the kitchen received him in silence, with her thick lips pouted. When Peter observed it, he felt slightly amused at his mother's resentment. "Well, you sho had a lot o' chatter over signin' a lil ole paper." "She signed for ten dollars," said Peter, smiling. "Huh! she'll never pay it." "Said Tump Pack would pay it." "Huh!" The old negress dropped the subject, and nodded at a huge double pan on the table. "Dat's whut she brung you." She grunted disapprovingly. "And it's for you, too, Mother." "Ya-as, I 'magine she brung somp'n fuh me." Peter walked across to the double pans, and saw they held a complete dinner--chicken, hot biscuits, cake, pickle, even ice-cream. The sight of the food brought Peter a realization that he was keenly hungry. As a matter of fact, he had not eaten a palatable meal since he had been evicted from the white dining-car at Cairo, Illinois. Siner served his own and his mother's plate. The old woman sniffed again. "Seems to me lak you is mighty onobsarvin' fuh a nigger whut's been off to college." "Anything else?" Peter looked into the pans again. "Ain't you see whut it's all in?" "What it's in?" "Yeah; whut it's in. You heared whut I said." "What is it in?" "Why, it's in Miss Arkwright's tukky roaster, dat's whut it's in." The old negress drove her point home with an acid accent.