asked his servant if she had
fed his cat, and old Rose invariably would sulk and poke out her lips
and put off answering to the last possible moment of insolence, then
would grumble out that she was jes 'bout to feed the varmint, an' 't wuz
funny nobody couldn't give a hard-wuckin' colored woman breathin'-space
to turn roun' in.

This reply was satisfactory to the Captain, because he knew what it
meant,--that Rose had half forgotten the cat, and had meant wholly to
forget it, but since she had been snapped up, so to speak, in the very
act of forgetting, she would dole it out a piece or two of the meat that
she had meant to abscond with as soon as the dishes were done.

While Rose was fulminating, the old gentleman recalled his bent globe
and decided the moment had come for a lecture on that point. It always
vaguely embarrassed the Captain to correct Rose, and this increased his
dignity. Now he cleared his throat in a certain way that brought the old
negress to attention, so well they knew each other.

"By the way, Rose, in the future I must request you to use extraordinary
precautions in cleansing and dusting articles of my household furniture,
or, in case of damage, I shall be forced to withhold an indemnification
out of your pay."

Eight or ten years ago, when the Captain first repeated this formula to
his servant, the roll and swing of his rhetoric, and the last word,
"pay," had built up lively hopes in Rose that the old gentleman was
announcing an increase in her regular wage of a dollar a week.
Experience, however, had long since corrected this faulty
interpretation.

She came to a stand in the doorway, with her kinky gray head swung
around, half puzzled, wholly rebellious.

"Whut is I bruk now?"

"My globe."

The old woman turned about with more than usual innocence.

"Why, I ain't tech yo' globe!"

"I foresaw that," agreed the Captain, with patient irony, "but in the
future don't touch it more carefully. You bent its pivot the last time
you refrained from handling it."

"But I tell you I ain't tech yo' globe!" cried the negress, with the
anger of an illiterate person who feels, but cannot understand, the
satire leveled at her.

"I agree with you," said the Captain, glad the affair was over.

This verbal ducking into the cellar out of the path of her storm stirred
up a tempest.

"But I tell you I ain't bruk it!"

"That's what I said."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she flared; "you says I ain't, but w