ed. Through the veils of
flying dust he made out some one, and a moment later identified not Tump
Pack, but the gangling form of Jim Pink Staggs, clad in a dark-blue
sack-coat and white flannel trousers with pin stripes. It was the sort
of costume affected by interlocutors of minstrel shows; it had a
minstrel trigness about it.

As a matter of fact, Jim Pink was a sort of semi-professional minstrel.
Ordinarily, he ran a pressing-shop in the Niggertown crescent, but
occasionally he impressed all the dramatic talent of Niggertown and
really did take the road with a minstrel company. These barn-storming
expeditions reached down into Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas.
Sometimes they proved a great success, and the darkies rode back several
hundred dollars ahead. Sometimes they tramped back.

Jim Pink hailed Peter with a wave of his hand and a grotesque
displacement of his mouth to one side of his face, which he had found
effective in his minstrel buffoonery.

"Whut you raisin' so much dus' about?" he called out of the corner of
his mouth, while looking at Peter out of one half-closed eye.

Peter shook his head and smiled.

"Thought it mout be Mister Hooker deliverin' dat lan' you bought." Jim
Pink flung his long, flexible face into an imitation of convulsed
laughter, then next moment dropped it into an intense gravity and
declared, "'Dus' thou art, to dus' returnest.'" The quotation seemed
fruitless and silly enough, but Jim Pink tucked his head to one side as
if listening intently to himself, then repeated sepulchrally, "'Dus'
thou art, to dus' returnest.' By the way, Peter," he broke off cheerily,
"you ain't happen to see Tump Pack, is you?"

"No," said Peter, unamused.

"Is he borrowed a gun fum you?" inquired the minstrel, solemnly.

"No-o." Peter looked questioningly at the clown through half-closed
eyes.

"Huh, now dat's funny." Jim Pink frowned, and pulled down his loose
mouth and seemed to study. He drew out a pearl-handled knife, closed his
hand over it, blew on his fist, then opened the other hand, and
exhibited the knife lying in its palm, with the blade open. He seemed
surprised at the change and began cleaning his finger-nails. Jim Pink
was the magician at his shows.

Peter waited patiently for Jim Pink to impart his information, "Well,
what's the idea?" he asked at last.

"Don' know. 'Pears lak dat knife won't stay in any one han'." He looked
at it, curiously.

"I mean about Tump," said Peter,