“Dis here is suttinly a good joke,” he snickered; “but ef I keeps it up too long I’s skeart I’ll laugh myself to death. I got a hunch dat I better mosey along todes de depot. Marse Tom done advise me to leave dis town.”
When the slow accommodation train pulled into the depot, Pap Curtain boarded it from the side farthest from the station, took an obscure seat in the negro coach, and did his best to attract no attention as the train conveyed him away from Tickfall.
At three o’clock one of the clerks closed the big glass doors of the Tickfall National Bank and went back to his desk.
Ten minutes later there was a loud knock upon the glass door, and the clerk looked up. What he saw caused him to spring from his stool, overturning it with a loud clatter upon the marble floor, and go running down the corridor to the president’s office.
“Come out here quick, Colonel!” the clerk exclaimed, his hair standing on end and cold sweat dampening his forehead. “God only knows what has got into the heads of our negro depositors! Every nigger buck in Tickfall is lined up in front of the bank, and the leader is knocking on the door, trying to get in!”
Gaitskill jerked open a drawer, slipped a heavy revolver in his side coat pocket, and stepped toward the front.
Figger Bush’s shoe-brush mustache was pressed close to the glass, his hands were cupped around his eyes, and he was peering in to catch the first glimpse of Marse Tom as he came out of his office.
“Here he am, niggers!” he bawled as the colonel fumbled with the fastening of the door.
“Howdy, Marse Tom!” the greeting ran down the line with every variation of tone like a child playing a scale on the piano with one finger.
“Well?” Gaitskill demanded in a loud tone. “What in the name of mud is the matter now?”
“Us is all come to git in on de picnic, Marse Tom,” Figger Bush announced as spokesman. “We all paid our dollar an’ Pap tipped us off to come to de bank at closin’ time!”
“He sold us a ticket to de excussion, Marse Tom,” Figger informed him. “Yes, suh, we is powerful glad you is gittin’ one up--peanuts an’ ice-water, an’ plenty brass-band music--all us niggers favors it fine!”
“What in the devil are you talking about?” Gaitskill bawled.