Bulldog shuffled from one foot to the other. “It was thisaway, Jedge, Yo’ Honour. The las’ six months what you give me, they ain’t up till to-morrow. Cap’n Jim, he startin’ the big ’Geechee Canal to-morrow. Come las’ Friday, Cap’n Jim, he say, ‘Bulldog, yo’ bin a mighty good nigger this trip. Ah’m lettin’ yo’ out a couple ob days ahaid ob time. Mebby you-all be back so’s we kin staht wif the new ‘Geechee Canal together.’ Ah reckon dat Cap’n Jim be right, Jedge, Yo’ Honour, cause heah Ah is!” As Bulldog broke into another of those infectious grins, it was necessary for Judge Barringer to rap for order, although he was forced to cough to hide his own mirth. Any other morning Bulldog might have been highly amusing entertainment, but the railbirds were calling from the Big Swamp. “So much for that,” Judge Barringer said. “Tell us what happened. Why is this man in the hospital?” “It was thisaway, Jedge, Yo’ Honour,” Bulldog repeated the formula: “Ah gits me home an’ Ah finds that a yaller Washin’ton nigger been shinin’ up to my Sally while Ah bin down on de Fahm. Yassuh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour, he’s shinin’ when I gits home. I comes in de front do’ an’ he goes out de back. All Ah done, Jedge, was jes’ flicked dat nigger, ’cause he don’ move fas’ enough.” “You just flicked him. What with?” Judge Barringer asked, as the term was a new one to him. “Wif the back ob mah han’, Jedge, thisaway.” Bulldog made a snapping gesture with one hand; “jes’ lak yo’d flick on a fly, Jedge. Dat’s all Ah done to dat measly little nigger. He wasn’t big enough to hit.” “So you just flicked him like you’d flick off a fly?” Judge Barringer questioned. “Yas-suh, dat’s all, Jedge, Yo’ Honour,” Bulldog answered. “And now this man is in the hospital and they don’t know when he will be able to appear. It seems to me that the last time you were here you said you had just made a pass at a man and when they got him to the hospital he was cut in ten different places.” Judge Barringer leaned back with an air of resignation. “Bulldog, you’re hopeless. I’m going to send you back to Captain Jim for another six months. For the general safety of the community at large, you’d better do your flicking on the new Ogeechee Canal.” “Yas-suh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour,” Bulldog answered. Such a remark coming from any other prisoner would have been impertinence and would have been swiftly treated as such. But between old friends there are no impertinences. Bulldog turned away with a grin and ploughed his way through the crowd in the prisoners’ pen to the bench in the rear. Two Negroes got up hastily to make room for him. The business of the court moved along swiftly. The railbirds were calling to the judge’s bench from the Big Swamp. Bulldog, on the prisoners’ bench, was thinking of the convict captain. He liked Captain Jim. “Ah guess he knowed Ah’d be back in time all right,” he mused to himself. “Well, Cap’n Jim, Ah’m comin’.”