“You better fetch dem same handcuffs back tonight, Skeeter,” Prince Total grinned. “Yo’ bes’ chance to insult dat lady is atter we nail Deo up in dat box.”
The men gradually talked themselves out and went away. Skeeter turned to his one friend and sympathizer, Figger Bush.
“Figger,” he said, “I’s gwine git even wid dat pair of crooks or die. Is you willin’ to he’p me?”
“Suttinly,” Figger agreed eagerly. “I think dem show folks done you powerful bad.”
“We begins right now,” Skeeter announced, as he got up and went back to a rear room and came out with Tella’s Spitz dog.
“Come out in front wid me, Figger,” Skeeter said, as he led the dog out of the door and stopped in the middle of the cinder sidewalk. “I want you to hold dis dawg for me.”
“I’s gwine git back about fawty feet, take a little run, an’ kick dis dang dawg so fur dat de nex’ time he spits it’ll be in Arkansas!” Skeeter announced viciously.
“I’s wid you!” Figger chuckled, as he spraddled his legs and grasped the Pomeranian by his bushy, silky tail. “Kick de goal!”
Skeeter made a little run and almost kicked a hole in the sky. His right foot went up like he had hitched it to a star. For the little dog squatted and Skeeter missed him!
He snapped at Figger and Figger let go his tail. He sunk his sharp little teeth in the seat of Skeeter’s pantaloons and Skeeter went down the street at full speed, exhausting the treasuries of his throat to vocalize his fright. The dog held on until the seat of Skeeter’s trousers parted company with the rest of the garment and came away. Then the dog, well satisfied, trotted happily down the street, growling ferociously and stopping at intervals to shake the everlasting stuffing out of the piece of cloth which he had captured.
Figger Bush lay flat down upon the ground and whooped with laughter until the town reverberated with the echo of his hilarity like a pack of hounds chasing a fox. When he saw Skeeter returning, he decided it would be safer to go down town and see what time it was. So he went.
But in less than an hour Figger returned in great excitement, bringing with him a little, timid negro woman with a tiny baby upon her arm.
He led her through the saloon to a rear room, motioning mysteriously to Skeeter as he passed. When they were all seated at a table Figger said: