There had been wrangling and high words just before his entrance. Colonel Delancy Hyde was ejecting his wrath against the universal Yankee nation in the choicest terms of vituperation that his limited vocabulary could supply. The loss of both his nigger and his revolver had been too much for his equanimity. Captain Skinner and his companion, Biggs, were sturdily demanding their fees, which did not seem to be forthcoming. Charlton, in abject grief of heart, was silently lamenting the loss of his fifty dollars, forfeited by the non-delivery of the slave; and Iverson, the policeman, was delicately insinuating in the ear of the lawyer that he should look to him for his pay. Peek, entering in this knotty condition of affairs, was the _Deus ex machina_ to disentangle the complication and set the wheels smoothly in motion. No one believed he would come back, and there issued from the lips of all an exclamation of surprise, not unseasoned with oaths to suit the several tastes. “Cuss me if here ain’t the nigger himself come back!” exclaimed the Colonel. “Wall, Peek, I didn’t reckon you was gwine to keep yer word, and it made me swar some to see how I’d been chiselled fust out of my revolver and then out of my nigger, by a damned Yankee policeman. But here you air, and we’ll fix things right off, so’s to be ready for the next Philadelphy train, if so be yer’ll go without any fuss.” “Yes, I’ll go, Colonel,” said Peek, “but you’ll have an officer to see I don’t escape from the cars.” “Thar’s seventy-five dollars expense, blast yer!” exclaimed the Colonel. “Yes, be Gawd! I’ve got to pay this man for goin’ to Cincinnati and back. O, but old Hawks will take your damned hide off when we git you back in Texas,—sure!” Peek, to serve some purpose of his own, here dropped his dignity entirely, and assumed the manner and language of the careless, rollicking plantation nigger. “Yah! yah!” laughed he. “Wall, look a-he-ah, Kunnle Delancy Hyde. Les make a trade,—we two,—and git rid of the policeman altogedder. I can sabe yer fifty dollars, shoo-er-r-r, Kunnle Delancy Hyde, if you’ll do as how dis nigger tells yer to.” “How’ll yer do it, Peek?” asked the Colonel, much pacified by the slave’s repetition of his entire name and title. “I’ll promise to be a good nigger all the way to Cincinnati, and not try to run away,—no, not wunst,—if you’ll pay me twenty-five dollars.” “Will yer sign to that, Peek, and put in, ‘So help me Gawd’?” asked the Colonel. Peek started, and looked sharply at Hyde; and then quietly replied, “Yes, I’ll do it, if you’ll gib me the money to do with as I choose; but you must agree to le’m me write a letter, and put it in the post-office afore we leeb.” The Colonel considered the matter a moment, then turned to Charlton, and said, “Draw up an agreement, and let the nigger sign it, and be sure and put in, ‘So help me Gawd.’”