“I knowed dat as soon as I seen you, Pap,” Skeeter sighed. “I admits dat I owes you. I promises to pay you as soon as I kin; but I ain’t got de money now. Ef you’ll jes’ only go away ’thout talkin’, you’ll make me happy.” Pap took off his hat and laid it upon the table, where they were sitting. He took his cigar from his mouth and placed it on the table so that the lighted end projected a little over the edge. Then he drew a chair close to Skeeter and laid a horny finger upon Skeeter’s knee for emphasis. Evidently Skeeter was not to be made happy. Pap’s baboon face, with its snarling voice and lips, carried its continual sneer. He possessed the conversational facilities of Bildad the Shuhite. First he coaxed, wheedled, begged, and implored. Then he argued and expounded, reviewed and reiterated, discussed details and recapitulated, presenting the whole matter from the broadest possible standpoint; but he found it hard to persuade money out of Skeeter, for the reason that Skeeter had none. The cupboard was bare. Then he mentioned the possibility of a final and absolute refusal on Skeeter’s part to restore the ten dollars wrongfully acquired, and explained the inevitable consequences. At this point he put on what the negroes call the “’rousements,” and yapped like a poodle. Reaching his peroration, he found that decent language bent and broke beneath the burden of his meaning, so he “cussed.” “I got only two boxes of seegaws in my little show case, Pap,” Skeeter said, when the vocal pyrotechnics subsided into a feeble splutter of hot ashes. “Take ’em an’ git out! Dey is wuth mo’ dan ten dollars, but I gib ’em to you. Fer Gawd’s sake git out!” Evidently Conko Mukes was waiting outside until Pap finished. The swinging doors of the saloon had not ceased to vibrate after Pap before Conko pushed them wide and entered the room with the clumsy gait of a bear. “I got four friends dat is app’inted me to colleck fawty dollars Skeeter!” he bellowed. “Dey promises me ten pussent per each fer my trouble in collectin’. Dat’ll be fo’ dollars fer me.” “Jes’ take whutever you wants an’ call it even,” Skeeter said in a lifeless voice. “I been agonizin’ all de mawnin’, an’ I craves to got de agony over.” “I don’t want no secont-hand bar-fixtures,” Conko laughed hoarsely. “Barrooms is gone out of style. I wants de spot cash paid in my hand. Gimme yo’ money or yo’ life!” “You know I ain’t got no money,” Skeeter wailed. “Cain’t you take somepin I got in dis saloom?” “Naw!” Conko bawled. “I cain’t colleck no ten pussent of no brass foot-rail or pool-table. I wants de cash!” Up to this moment the day had been one of great humiliation. Now began a period in which Skeeter showed a marvelous mental versatility.