e I saw you first?"

For the first time a flash of fire came from the pungy captain's black
cherries of eyes, and his huge broad face of swarthy color expressed its
full Oriental character:

"The last time I saw you, Joe Johnson, was not a-lurking in Judge
Custis's kitchen fur no good, nor a-insultin' of the Judge's t'other
visitor, Milburn of the steeple-top: it was a-huggin' the whippin'-post
on the public green of Georgetown, State of Delaware, an' the sheriff
a-layin' of it over your back; an' after he sot you up in the pillory I
took the rottenest egg I could git, an' I bust it right on the eye where
that nigger bruised you yisterday!"

The oppressive silence, as Joe Johnson slunk back, desperate with rage,
yet unable to deny, was broken by Jack Wonnell's unthinking
interjection:

"Whoop, Jimmy! Hooraw for Prencess Anne!"

"An' why did I git that egg an' make you smell it, Joe Johnson? Because,
by smoke! you was a stinkin' kidnapper, robbing of the pore free
niggers of their liberty, knowin' that they didn't carry no arms and
couldn't make no good defense! That's your trade, an' it's the meanest
an' most cowardly in the world. It's doin' what the Algerynes does in
fair fighting. You're a fine American citizen, ain't you? I know your
gang, and a bloody one it is, but you can't look a white man in the eye,
because you're a thief and a coward!"

The Hellenic nature of the bay captain had never displayed itself to the
Judge with this fulness, and he felt some natural admiration as he took
Phoebus by the arm.

"Well, well!" said the Judge, "let him go now, Phoebus! Mr. Johnson,
don't let me see you in Princess Anne again to-day. Continue your
journey and disturb us no more, or I shall put criminal process upon
you, and you see we have stout constables in Somerset."

As he led Phoebus around the corner of the bank, the Judge said:

"James, my wife is so sick that I must keep house with her this morning,
and I want a little note left at the church for Mr. Tilghman. Will you
take it?"

"Why, with pleasure, Judge," the nonchalant villager replied. "I don't
look very handsome in the 'piscopal church, but I'll do a' arrand."

As the Judge wrote the note with his gold pencil on a leaf of his
memorandum book, he said:

"James, did you identify that man yesterday?"

"Yes, I knowed him as soon as he come to the tavern. This mornin',
seein' of him around town, I was afear'd Samson Hat would stumble on
him, and the