“I don’t want any lawsuit, Skeeter. It takes a lot of time, and it takes a lot of money which has to be paid to the lawyers and the courts. We’ll fix this up between ourselves.” “Dat suits me,” Skeeter told him. “I’ll have your automobile repaired, put in perfect condition, painted and polished and fixed like new. Besides that I’ll give you one hundred dollars.” With these words, he laid the money out on his knee, one hundred dollars in one-dollar bills. Skeeter sat up, reached for the money, and thrust it under his pillow on the bed. “Whar do I sign?” he grinned. The smiling commissioner indicated the dotted line, Skeeter inscribed his name with a flourish, and before that gentleman was out of the yard Skeeter was kicking off the bed covers, preparing to dress and go out. “Dis here is my lucky day,” he announced to his immortal soul. About this time, Orren Randolph Gaitskill, returning from Sunday-school, met Little Bit who had been waiting for him at the corner for an hour. The two boys played around the streets for a while, then wandered aimlessly down the alley and into a vacant place in the rear of the Gaitskill store. There they found something which interested them very much. It was a discarded advertisement. A piece of cardboard, life-size, represented a big, grinning negro man. Both arms were folded across his chest and he was hugging a brand of cured meat called the Hallelujah Ham to his bosom while his great mouth was wide-spread in a toothsome grin of anticipation over its sugar-cured sweetness. Having served its purpose, this cardboard man had been tossed upon the trash heap to be carted away. Org and Little Bit beat the trash man to it and regarded it as a great possession. They carried the thing to the corner of the street and set it up in the middle of the alley. A negro woman passed, humming a tune. When she saw the big negro, she jumped to one side with loud bawl: “My Gawd! Who you tryin’ to skeer?” When she saw it was merely a cardboard standing up, she went laughing down the street. “This is our lucky day, Little Bit,” Org chuckled. “We can have a heap of fun with this thing. There is plenty of fun scaring people if they don’t get mad and fight you afterwards.” “Niggers don’t fight when dey is skeart,” Little Bit said. “Dey runs.” “But we can’t play with this to-day,” Org said virtuously, recalling his recent Sunday-school instructions. “This is the Sabbath of the Lord and this big negro man ought to rest on this day. We’ll take him up to my house and lay him down in the stable so he can rest.” “Restin’ time an’ Sonday shore sounds good to a nigger,” Little Bit giggled. “Even dis here paper pasteboard man is a-grinnin’.” But this was not a day of rest at the Gaitskill home. They were arranging to give a great dinner that evening at which would be announced the engagement of Miss Virginia Gaitskill and Captain Kerley Kerlerac.