“They can make the money out of Floyd-Rosney, though,--he has got money to burn. For one, I don’t care if he does lose. It would be outrageous for him to defend the suit for recovery and plead the statute of limitations,” said the fat man, who did not mince his opinions.
“But he may win out,” said the broker. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law,--and for forty years under a decree of the Chancery court.”
“Forty thousand years would do him no good in the face of that release,” protested another. “It was wrongful possession from the beginning. Floyd-Rosney is a trespasser here and nothing more.”
“But can you call a man a ‘trespasser’ who holds under color of title? His is an adverse possession,” argued the broker.
And the wrangle began anew with revived spirit. It was well, perhaps, that the refugees had a subject of discussion so charged with immediate and general interest, since they had no resource but to roam the old place until breakfast should be announced. After this meal they would resume their fitful wanderings till a boat should be sighted. They had turned out of their comfortable quarters when Captain Treherne had been brought to the restricted inhabited space of the old building, relinquishing the shake-down and the fire to him and his special ministrants.
Now and again a speculation concerning breakfast agitated the group of men, and one venturesome spirit made a journey down the quaking old rear verandah to the kitchen, stepping over gaps where the flooring had been torn up for fuel and walking the rotting sills when the hiatus was too wide to be leaped. His errand to expedite breakfast was, apparently, without result.
“Yes, sah,” said the waiter-cook, into whose gloomy soul morning had yet cast no illuminating ray. “I gwine ter dish up when de breakfast is cooked,--nuver knowed you wanted it raw. Cap’n nuver treated me right,--no range, no cook-fixin’s,--nuthin’--an’ breakfast expected to be smokin’ on de table ’fore de fog is off de river. Naw, Sah,--ef you kin cook it any quicker, why cook it yourself, Sah. I ain’t got no dijections to your cookin’ it.”
Upon his return from his tour of discovery, being earnestly interrogated as to the prospects by his fellow-refugees, the gentleman gave this sage advice: “If you don’t want to have to knock an impudent nigger down you will stay here and eat breakfast when he has a mind to serve it.”