"Jeff," he says, "you have gifts which I never fully appreciated before. You are not only a philosopher but a psychologist as well."
"Boss," I says, "you does me too much honor. So fur ez I knows, I ain't nary one of them two things w'ich you jest called me. I only merely strives fur to use the few grains of common-sense w'ich the Good Lawd give me, tha's all 'tis. Tubby shore, I got one 'vantage on my side: I kin look at w'ite folkses' affairs frum a cullid stan'p'int whar'as they kin only look at 'em frum they own. Ef the shoe wuz on t'other foot you doubtless could he'p me; but in the present case it's possible I kin he'p you. I's on the outside lookin' in, whilst you is on the inside lookin' out, ez you mout say; so mebbe I kin 'scover things w'ich you'd utterly overlook. The fly be-holes whut 'scapes the elephant's eye an' the minner gives counsel to the whale. Mebbe I ain't gittin' the words routined right fur to 'spress my meanin's, but, even so, I reckin you gits my drift, don't you, suh?"
"I follow you perfectly, with an ever-increasing admiration," he says. "Go ahead. This look like our lucky day anyhow--let's press the luck!"
"Yas suh," I says. "Now, f'rinstances," I says, "you tek the 'foresaid Mr. H. C. Raynor. Wen you spoke to him of lawsuits yistiddy he mouty nigh laffed in yore face, didn't he? Well, 'at shows he ain't got no dread of lawsuits. Prob'ly he's been mixed up in 'em befo'; most doubtless he knows the science of lawsuitin' frum the startin'-tape to the home-stretch. An' lakwise he'd have the bulge on you w'en it come to makin' figgers wu'k out lak he wanted 'em to, so he'd 'pear to be inside his rights an' you'd 'pear to be on the wrong side of the docket. I persume he's had a 'bundance of 'sperience in sech matters, w'ich you ain't. He knows his own system an' he knows you don't know it, w'ich fortifies him yit fu'ther. All right, suh, so much fur that. But s'posen, now, on the other hand, we wuz to layway him an' jump out of ambushmint at him wid a brand-new notion? I jedges he ain't got no rippertation to speak of, so losin' whut lil' scraps of it he mout have left wouldn't keep him 'wake nights worryin', 'specially effen he'd already salted away the cash w'ich he craved. But he do own somethin' w'ich he prizes most highly or elsewise I misses my guess--he's got a skin w'ich he's managed some way, by hook, or crook, to keep it whole up to now. An' ef right out of a clear sky he suddenly wuz faced wid prospect of havin' it all punctured up in mebbe fo', five, or six places, I figgers he mout start singin' a diff'unt song frum the one w'ich at the present 'pears to be his fav'rit' selection.