ggitate, when a new
thought was born to him. He lay silent, staring above him into the
darkness.

"I's de Supreem Gran' Arrangeh!" he suddenly exclaimed. "I's de double
Grandes' Arrangeh whut is!" A faint bleat sounded from the darkness.
"Shut up, Lily! Fo' I gits th'oo arrangin', yo' an' me bofe rides de
mule does us crave to."

CHAPTER II

1.

The following morning the Wildcat gorged himself on a ponderous
breakfast. "Sho' is noble ham. Yo' sho' is de grandes' cook whut is.
Wondeh how come ol' Honey Tone neveh 'spressed himse'f about yo'?"

"'At niggah neveh wuz home enough to git 'quainted."

The Wildcat looked sidewise at the cook. "Last night I meets up wid a
boy in de barber shop whut knows Honey Tone pussonal. He says 'at
triflin' uplifteh claims to bein' single--claims he neveh had no wife."

The culinary Amazon picked up a frying pan and brought it down on the
top of the range with a resounding bang. "He claims, does he? Wunst Ah
gits mah hooks in 'at nigger's head, all he claims is funeral
benefits!"

The Wildcat suggested that Honey Tone was probably far, far away and
established as the centre of another family circle. The cook reacted
nobly.

He waited until the avoirdupois cyclone had cooled off. Something in
the cook's energetic rage suggested the activities of the Wildcat's
former landlady, Cuspidora Lee, from whom he had occasionally borrowed
tobacco money. He determined to visit his former boarding house and
renew his financial relations.

"You has my sympathy bofe ways," he said to the cook. "Yo' is married
up wid a no-account triflin' yellow uplifteh. Is he wid you, you is
mis'able, an' is he A.W.O.L. yo' is twice 'at much. Wuz I you, when
you meets up wid him I'd bleed him by han'. But don' you grieve. Neveh
min'. Some day yo' meets up wid him.... Den yo' pays him back."

2.

The Wildcat left the kitchen. He carried a bouquet of cabbage leaves to
Lily, who was tethered at the woodshed door. "Eat heavy, Lily," he
commanded. "Yo' neveh got no reliable greens like dis when yo' wuz in
France." He hazed Lily into the woodshed and departed on his way to
visit Miss Cuspidora Lee. He found the Lee personage perspiring darkly
in the clouds of heat that billowed from a red-hot cookstove.

"Cuspido', I bids yo' mawin'," he said briefly.

Cuspidora Lee turned upon him. "Fo' de Lawd sake, you scared me! If it
ain't Vitus Marsden. Prodigal, come heah! Whah at is you been?" The
Wildcat