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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
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<section id="a-christmas-pi" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
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<h2 epub:type="title">A Christmas Pi</h2>
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<p>I am not without claim to distinction. Although I still stick to suspenders—which, happily, reciprocate—I am negatively egregious. I have never, for instance, seen a professional baseball game, never said that George M. Cohan was “clever,” never started to keep a diary, never called Eugene Walter by his first name, never parodied “The Raven,” never written a Christmas story, never—but what denizen of Never-Never Land can boast so much? Or would, I overhear you think, if he could?</p>
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<p>Always have I been on the lookout for the Impossible, always on the trail of the Unattainable. Someday, perhaps, I shall find a sleeping-car with a name that means something, an intelligent West Indian hallboy in a New York apartment building, a boardinghouse whose inmates occasionally smile, a man born in Manhattan, a 60-cent table d’hôte that serves six oysters the portion instead of four, a Southerner who leaves you in doubt as to his birthplace longer than ten minutes after the introduction, and myself writing a Christmas story. But that will happen ten days after the millennium, and as the millennium is to be magazineless—</p>
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<p>Every June I am asked to write a Christmas story. Every August I promise, vow, insist, swear that it shall be ready in two weeks. And every November I protest that I am sorry, but I couldn't think of anything new and—well, next year, sure. It was so last year and the year before. It was so this year. And I said to myself that next year it would not be so. I would spend Christmas Eve looking about me. I would get copy from a cop, material from a mater, plot from a messenger boy. And behold! it was Christmas Eve.</p>
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<p>I am not without claim to distinction. Although I still stick to suspenders—which, happily, reciprocate—I am negatively egregious. I have never, for instance, seen a professional baseball game, never said that George M. Cohan was “clever,” never started to keep a diary, never called Eugene Walter by his first name, never parodied “The Raven,” never written a Christmas story, never—but what denizen of Never-Never Land can boast so much? Or would, I overhear you think, if he could?</p>
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<p>Always have I been on the lookout for the Impossible, always on the trail of the Unattainable. Someday, perhaps, I shall find a sleeping-car with a name that means something, an intelligent West Indian hallboy in a New York apartment building, a boardinghouse whose inmates occasionally smile, a man born in Manhattan, a 60-cent table d’hôte that serves six oysters the portion instead of four, a Southerner who leaves you in doubt as to his birthplace longer than ten minutes after the introduction, and myself writing a Christmas story. But that will happen ten days after the millennium, and as the millennium is to be magazineless—</p>
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<p>Every June I am asked to write a Christmas story. Every August I promise, vow, insist, swear that it shall be ready in two weeks. And every November I protest that I am sorry, but I couldn’t think of anything new and—well, next year, sure. It was so last year and the year before. It was so this year. And I said to myself that next year it would not be so. I would spend Christmas Eve looking about me. I would get copy from a cop, material from a mater, plot from a messenger boy. And behold! it was Christmas Eve.</p>
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<p>It was Christmas Eve, to give a synopsis of preceding chapters. I will fine-toothcomb the town for an idea next summer, quoth I. And so I walked, rode and taxi-cabbed. I spoke to waiters, subway guards, chauffeurs and newsboys and tried to draw from them some bit of life, some experience that might make a story, a Christmas story, <abbr class="initialism">COD</abbr>, at twenty cents a word. But there was not a syllable in the silly bunch, not a comma in the comatose lot.</p>
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<p>And then I wandered into Grand Street and I saw that which made me instinctively clutch my fountain pen. A man, unswept, unmoneyed and unstrung, was about to hurl a brick into a pawnbroker’s window. His arm was raised and he was as deliberate as Mr. Tri-Digital Brown of Chicago trying to lessen the average of Mr. John P. Hanswagner of Pittsburgh. (I always spell Pittsburgh with the final “h”; it’s a final h of a town.)</p>
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<p>And then I wandered into Grand Street and I saw that which made me instinctively clutch my fountain pen. A man, unswept, unmoneyed and unstrung, was about to hurl a brick into a pawnbroker’s window. His arm was raised and he was as deliberate as Mr. Tri-Digital Brown of Chicago trying to lessen the average of Mr. John P. Hanswagner of Pittsburgh. (I always spell Pittsburgh with the final “h”; it’s a final h of a town.)</p>
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<p>“Here, Bill,” I aid, “I wouldn’t do that.”</p>
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<p>“Oh, yes, you would,” he responded.</p>
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<p>Which was my chance. “Let us withdraw to yonder inn,” I said, like a head chorus-man whose object is to “get ’em off,” “and we can discuss things.”</p>
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<p>“What’s the game?” I asked, after the waiter had received instructions.</p>
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<p>“I wanted to get money enough to buy my wife a Christmas present. Been out o’ work for a year. I’m desperate. I—”</p>
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<p>“I wanted to get money enough to buy my wife a Christmas present. Been out o’ work for a year. I’m desperate. I—”</p>
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<p>“Nothing of the kind,” I contradicted. “People don’t try to steal diamonds on a crowded street for any such purpose. I’m not a detective, as you might know by my guessing so correctly.”</p>
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<p>“Well,” he laughed, pulling out a bill and giving it to the waiter for the check; “it’s a good joke and I’ll let you in, though you can’t appreciate it. I thought if I hurled that brick in I’d get arrested quick and be sent to a cell or over on the island or something like that. You see, I’m a magazine writer and I wanted to get a real story—‘Yuletide on the Island’ or something. What’s your line, spoiler of a good story?”</p>
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<p>“Well,” he laughed, pulling out a bill and giving it to the waiter for the check; “it’s a good joke and I’ll let you in, though you can’t appreciate it. I thought if I hurled that brick in I’d get arrested quick and be sent to a cell or over on the island or something like that. You see, I’m a magazine writer and I wanted to get a real story—‘Yuletide on the Island’ or something. What’s your line, spoiler of a good story?”</p>
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<p>“I?” I said. “My name is John Horner, and I’m a plumber.”</p>
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</section>
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</body>
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<p>I hate to be reminded of Pollok’s “Course of Time,” and so do you; but every time I saw Jacks I would think of the poet’s description of another poet by the name of <abbr class="name">G. G.</abbr> Byron who “Drank early; deeply drank—drank draughts that common millions might have quenched; then died of thirst because there was no more to drink.”</p>
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<p>That fitted Jacks, except that, instead of dying, he came to Paloma, which was about the same thing. He was a telegrapher and station-and express-agent at seventy-five dollars a month. Why a young man who knew everything and could do everything was content to serve in such an obscure capacity I never could understand, although he let out a hint once that it was as a personal favor to the president and stockholders of the <abbr>S. P. Ry.</abbr> <abbr class="eoc">Co.</abbr></p>
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<p>One more line of description, and I turn Jacks over to you. He wore bright blue clothes, yellow shoes, and a bow tie made of the same cloth as his shirt.</p>
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<p>My rival <abbr>No.</abbr> 2 was Bud Cunningham, whose services had been engaged by a ranch near Paloma to assist in compelling refractory cattle to keep within the bounds of decorum and order. Bud was the only cowboy off the stage that I ever saw who looked like one on it. He wore the sombrero, the chaps, and the handkerchief tied at the back of his neck.</p>
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<p>My rival <abbr>No.</abbr> 2 was Bud Cunningham, whose services had been engaged by a ranch near Paloma to assist in compelling refractory cattle to keep within the bounds of decorum and order. Bud was the only cowboy off the stage that I ever saw who looked like one on it. He wore the sombrero, the chaps, and the handkerchief tied at the back of his neck.</p>
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<p>Twice a week Bud rode in from the Val Verde Ranch to sup at the Parisian Restaurant. He rode a many-high-handed Kentucky horse at a tremendously fast lope, which animal he would rein up so suddenly under the big mesquite at the corner of the brush shelter that his hoofs would plough canals yards long in the loam.</p>
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<p>Jacks and I were regular boarders at the restaurant, of course.</p>
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<p>The front room of the Hinkle House was as neat a little parlor as there was in the black-waxy country. It was all willow rocking-chairs, and home-knit tidies, and albums, and conch shells in a row. And a little upright piano in one corner.</p>
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<p>Sam, the cosmopolite, who called bartenders in San Antone by their first name, stood in the door. He was a better zoologist.</p>
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<p>“Well, ain’t that a Willie for your whiskers?” he commented. “Where’d you dig up the hobo, Ranse? Goin’ to make an auditorium for inbreviates out of the ranch?”</p>
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<p>“Say,” said Curly, from whose panoplied breast all shafts of wit fell blunted. “Any of you kiddin’ guys got a drink on you? Have your fun. Say, I’ve been hittin’ the stuff till I don’t know straight up.”</p>
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<p>He turned to Ranse. “Say, you shanghaied me on your d⸺d old prairie schooner—did I tell you to drive me to a farm? I want a drink. I’m goin’ all to little pieces. What’s doin’?”</p>
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<p>He turned to Ranse. “Say, you shanghaied me on your d⸺d old prairie schooner—did I tell you to drive me to a farm? I want a drink. I’m goin’ all to little pieces. What’s doin’?”</p>
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<p>Ranse saw that the tramp’s nerves were racking him. He despatched one of the Mexican boys to the ranch-house for a glass of whisky. Curly gulped it down; and into his eyes came a brief, grateful glow—as human as the expression in the eye of a faithful setter dog.</p>
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<p>“Thanky, boss,” he said, quietly.</p>
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<p>“You’re thirty miles from a railroad, and forty miles from a saloon,” said Ranse.</p>
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<p>“Thirty-two years I have lived on the Rancho Cibolo,” said Tia Juana. “I thought to be buried under the coma mott beyond the garden before these things should be known. Close the door, Don Ransom, and I will speak. I see in your face that you know.”</p>
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<p>An hour Ranse spent behind Tia Juana’s closed door. As he was on his way back to the house Curly called to him from the wagon-shed.</p>
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<p>The tramp sat on his cot, swinging his feet and smoking.</p>
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<p>“Say, sport,” he grumbled. “This is no way to treat a man after kidnappin’ him. I went up to the store and borrowed a razor from that fresh guy and had a shave. But that ain’t all a man needs. Say—can’t you loosen up for about three fingers more of that booze? I never asked you to bring me to your d⸺d farm.”</p>
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<p>“Say, sport,” he grumbled. “This is no way to treat a man after kidnappin’ him. I went up to the store and borrowed a razor from that fresh guy and had a shave. But that ain’t all a man needs. Say—can’t you loosen up for about three fingers more of that booze? I never asked you to bring me to your d⸺d farm.”</p>
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<p>“Stand up out here in the light,” said Ranse, looking at him closely.</p>
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<p>Curly got up sullenly and took a step or two.</p>
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<p>His face, now shaven smooth, seemed transformed. His hair had been combed, and it fell back from the right side of his forehead with a peculiar wave. The moonlight charitably softened the ravages of drink; and his aquiline, well-shaped nose and small, square cleft chin almost gave distinction to his looks.</p>
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<p>“I know you didn’t,” remarked the visitor, coolly; “And you won’t just yet. Light up?” He threw a leg over an arm of his chair, and tossed a handful of rich-hued cigars upon the table. Lawyer Gooch knew the brand. He thawed just enough to accept the invitation to smoke.</p>
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<p>“You are a divorce lawyer,” said the cardless visitor. This time there was no interrogation in his voice. Nor did his words constitute a simple assertion. They formed a charge—a denunciation—as one would say to a dog: “You are a dog.” Lawyer Gooch was silent under the imputation.</p>
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<p>“You handle,” continued the visitor, “all the various ramifications of busted-up connubiality. You are a surgeon, we might saw, who extracts Cupid’s darts when he shoots ’em into the wrong parties. You furnish patent, incandescent lights for premises where the torch of Hymen has burned so low you can’t light a cigar at it. Am I right, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gooch?”</p>
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<p>“I have undertaken cases,” said the lawyer, guardedly, “in the line to which your figurative speech seems to refer. Do you wish to consult me professionally, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> —” The lawyer paused, with significance.</p>
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<p>“I have undertaken cases,” said the lawyer, guardedly, “in the line to which your figurative speech seems to refer. Do you wish to consult me professionally, <abbr>Mr.</abbr>—” The lawyer paused, with significance.</p>
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<p>“Not yet,” said the other, with an arch wave of his cigar, “not just yet. Let us approach the subject with the caution that should have been used in the original act that makes this powwow necessary. There exists a matrimonial jumble to be straightened out. But before I give you names I want your honest—well, anyhow, your professional opinion on the merits of the mix-up. I want you to size up the catastrophe—abstractly—you understand? I’m <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Nobody; and I’ve got a story to tell you. Then you say what’s what. Do you get my wireless?”</p>
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<p>“You want to state a hypothetical case?” suggested Lawyer Gooch.</p>
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<p>“That’s the word I was after. ‘Apothecary’ was the best shot I could make at it in my mind. The hypothetical goes. I’ll state the case. Suppose there’s a woman—a deuced fine-looking woman—who has run away from her husband and home? She’s badly mashed on another man who went to her town to work up some real estate business. Now, we may as well call this woman’s husband Thomas <abbr class="name">R.</abbr> Billings, for that’s his name. I’m giving you straight tips on the cognomens. The Lothario chap is Henry <abbr class="name">K.</abbr> Jessup. The Billingses lived in a little town called Susanville—a good many miles from here. Now, Jessup leaves Susanville two weeks ago. The next day <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Billings follows him. She’s dead gone on this man Jessup; you can bet your law library on that.”</p>
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<p>The story was sentimental drivel, full of whimpering softheartedness and gushing egoism. All the art that Pettit had acquired was gone. A perusal of its buttery phrases would have made a cynic of a sighing chambermaid.</p>
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<p>In the morning Pettit came to my room. I read him his doom mercilessly. He laughed idiotically.</p>
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<p>“All right, Old Hoss,” he said, cheerily, “make cigar-lighters of it. What’s the difference? I’m going to take her to lunch at Claremont today.”</p>
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<p>There was about a month of it. And then Pettit came to me bearing an invisible mitten, with the fortitude of a dishrag. He talked of the grave and South America and prussic acid; and I lost an afternoon getting him straight. I took him out and saw that large and curative doses of whiskey were administered to him. I warned you this was a true story—’ware your white ribbons if only follow this tale. For two weeks I fed him whiskey and Omar, and read to him regularly every evening the column in the evening paper that reveals the secrets of female beauty. I recommend the treatment.</p>
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<p>There was about a month of it. And then Pettit came to me bearing an invisible mitten, with the fortitude of a dishrag. He talked of the grave and South America and prussic acid; and I lost an afternoon getting him straight. I took him out and saw that large and curative doses of whiskey were administered to him. I warned you this was a true story—‘ware your white ribbons if only follow this tale. For two weeks I fed him whiskey and Omar, and read to him regularly every evening the column in the evening paper that reveals the secrets of female beauty. I recommend the treatment.</p>
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<p>After Pettit was cured he wrote more stories. He recovered his old-time facility and did work just short of good enough. Then the curtain rose on the third act.</p>
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<p>A little, dark-eyed, silent girl from New Hampshire, who was studying applied design, fell deeply in love with him. She was the intense sort, but externally glacé, such as New England sometimes fools us with. Pettit liked her mildly, and took her about a good deal. She worshipped him, and now and then bored him.</p>
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<p>There came a climax when she tried to jump out of a window, and he had to save her by some perfunctary, unmeant wooing. Even I was shaken by the depths of the absorbing affection she showed. Home, friends, traditions, creeds went up like thistledown in the scale against her love. It was really discomposing.</p>
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<p>At seven o’clock Grandemont, in evening dress, with pearls—a family passion—in his spotless linen, emerged from somewhere. The invitations had specified eight as the dining hour. He drew an armchair upon the porch, and sat there, smoking cigarettes and half dreaming.</p>
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<p>The moon was an hour high. Fifty years back from the gate stood the house, under its noble grove. The road ran in front, and then came the grass-grown levee and the insatiate river beyond. Just above the levee top a tiny red light was creeping down and a tiny green one was creeping up. Then the passing steamers saluted, and the hoarse din startled the drowsy silence of the melancholy lowlands. The stillness returned, save for the little voices of the night—the owl’s recitative, the capriccio of the crickets, the concerto of the frogs in the grass. The piccaninnies and the dawdlers from the quarters had been dismissed to their confines, and the melée of the day was reduced to an orderly and intelligent silence. The six coloured waiters, in their white jackets, paced, cat-footed, about the table, pretending to arrange where all was beyond betterment. Absalom, in black and shining pumps posed, superior, here and there where the lights set off his grandeur. And Grandemont rested in his chair, waiting for his guests.</p>
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<p>He must have drifted into a dream—and an extravagant one—for he was master of Charleroi and Adèle was his wife. She was coming out to him now; he could hear her steps; he could feel her hand upon his shoulder—</p>
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<p>“<i xml:lang="fr">Pardon moi, M’shi Grande</i>”—it was Absalom’s hand touching him, it was Absalom’s voice, speaking the patois of the blacks—“but it is eight o’clock.”</p>
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<p>“<i xml:lang="fr">Pardon moi, M’shi Grande</i>”—it was Absalom’s hand touching him, it was Absalom’s voice, speaking the patois of the blacks—“but it is eight o’clock.”</p>
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<p>Eight o’clock. Grandemont sprang up. In the moonlight he could see the row of hitching-posts outside the gate. Long ago the horses of the guests should have stood there. They were vacant.</p>
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<p>A chanted roar of indignation, a just, waxing bellow of affront and dishonoured genius came from André’s kitchen, filling the house with rhythmic protest. The beautiful dinner, the pearl of a dinner, the little excellent superb jewel of a dinner! But one moment more of waiting and not even the thousand thunders of black pigs of the quarter would touch it!</p>
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<p>“They are a little late,” said Grandemont, calmly. “They will come soon. Tell André to hold back dinner. And ask him if, by some chance, a bull from the pastures has broken, roaring, into the house.”</p>
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<p>When the supper bell rang I was invited into a long, lofty room, wainscoted with dark oak and lighted by paraffine candles.</p>
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<p>Aubrey DeVere sat at the foot of the table and carved. He had taken off his coat, and his clinging undershirt revealed every muscle of a torso as grand as that of the Dying Gladiator in the Vatican at Rome. The supper was truly a Southern one. At one end was an enormous grinning opossum and sweet potatoes, while the table was covered with dishes of cabbage, fried chicken, fruit cake, persimmons, hot raw biscuits, blackhaws, Maypops, fried catfish, maple syrup, hominy, ice cream, sausages, bananas, crackling bread, pineapples, squashes, wild grapes and apple pies.</p>
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<p>Pete, the colored man, waited upon us, and once in handing <abbr>Mr.</abbr> DeVere the gravy he spilled a little of it upon the tablecloth. With a yell like a tiger, Aubrey DeVere sprang to his feet and hurled his carving knife to the handle in Pete’s breast. The poor colored man fell to the floor, and I ran and lifted his head.</p>
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<p>“Goodbye, missie,” he whispered. “I hear de angels singing, and I sees de bressed Mars Abraham Linkum smilin’ at me from near de great white th’one. Goodbye missie, OP Pete am goin’ home.’></p>
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<p>“Goodbye, missie,” he whispered. “I hear de angels singing, and I sees de bressed Mars Abraham Linkum smilin’ at me from near de great white th’one. Goodbye missie, OP Pete am goin’ home.’></p>
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<p>I rose and faced <abbr>Mr.</abbr> DeVere.</p>
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<p>“Inhuman monster!” I cried. “You have killed him!”</p>
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<p>He touched a silver bell and another servant appeared.</p>
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