In all Skeeter’s varied career no such request had ever been uttered in his astonished ears. Skeeter wondered if this extraordinary thing was attributable to prohibition. Surely the old order changeth! “I ain’t know yo’ favor or yo’ face, an’ I ain’t met de ’quaintance of yo’ name, boss,” Skeeter replied. “My name is Dick Nuhat,” the white man responded promptly. “I am not altogether an honest man, but I am a gentleman. This is a request of one gentleman to another.” “I likes to ’commodate white gentlemens, boss,” Skeeter said uneasily; “but I ain’t got de ten dollars, an’ so I cain’t affode to lend it.” Without a word the man turned away, walked back to the table, and sat down. Once more there was a period of silence and deep meditation, while a nervous colored man polished glasses and watched the white man from the corner of his eye. Mr. Nuhat had the trick of sitting as motionless as a stone dog on a lawn, while even his eyes were fixed in a stony stare, oblivious to what went on around him and looking out across the spaces unseeingly. “Dope!” Skeeter muttered to himself; but Skeeter was wrong. There was twenty minutes of this ponderous thinking, and then the man came to Skeeter and made a proposition. “I’ve got one thing I can sell, Skeeter. I rode to town on a horse that is worth one hundred dollars, intending to take him to Shongaloon, to enter him in the races at the fair; but I am broke. If you had lent me the ten dollars I would have gone on; but now, if I went, I would have no money to bet. So I am going to sell and go out of the racing business.” “You don’t talk like no race-hoss man to me,” Skeeter said. “I ain’t a race-horse man,” was the reply. “I am a scholar and a gentleman.” “I ain’t got no hundred dollars,” Skeeter Butts said next. “Dar ain’t no nigger in dis town wid dat much money in one lump. You’ll have to sell out to de white folks.” “Couldn’t you find ten colored people who had ten dollars each?” the white man asked. “All ten of you can own the horse, and when you make a win you can divide your earnings.” “What kind of hoss you got?” Skeeter asked with a new interest. “He’s a hard looker, Skeeter. He’s a hound dog. He limps in all four feet, but not in all at the same time, you know. He swaps from one foot to the other. Every time he stops he goes lame in a different foot, because he can’t remember which foot he was limping on before. He has an awful short memory that way. You never can tell what foot he is going to cripple in next, and he don’t know himself.” “Dat’s a kind of trick hoss,” Skeeter snickered. “Exactly,” Dick agreed. “I can make a killing with him at every race-track, for one look at him is aplenty. I can get all sorts of odds against him; but don’t make any mistake, little yeller nigger—that horse can run!” “Dat sounds good to me,” Skeeter replied after a moment’s thought. “How much do I git fer makin’ de trade?”