and it
was rather empty. While I was putting the food on the box he looked at
my books; he read their names out aloud. 'Elementary Physiology,' 'First
Principles.'

"'Golly!' he said; 'I've got a lot of dry stuff like that at home I got
for Sunday-school prizes; but I only keep them to light my pipe with
now; they come in handy for that.' Then he asked me if I had ever read
a book called the 'Black-eyed Creole.' 'That is the style for me,' he
said; 'there where the fellow takes the nigger-girl by the arm, and the
other fellow cuts it off! That's what I like.'

"But what he said after that I don't remember, only it made me feel as
if I were having a bad dream, and I wanted to be far away.

"When he had finished eating he did not stay long; he had to go and see
some girls home from a prayer-meeting; and he asked how it was he never
saw me walking out with any on Sunday afternoons. He said he had lots of
sweethearts, and he was going to see one the next Wednesday on a farm,
and he asked me to lend my mare. I told him she was very old. But he
said it didn't matter; he would come the next day to fetch her.

"After he was gone my little room got back to its old look. I loved
it so; I was so glad to get into it at night, and it seemed to be
reproaching me for bringing him there. The next day he took the grey
mare. On Thursday he did not bring her back, and on Friday I found the
saddle and bridle standing at my door.

"In the afternoon he looked into the shop, and called out: 'Hope you got
your saddle, Farber? Your bag-of-bones kicked out six miles from here.
I'll send you a couple of shillings tomorrow, though the old hide wasn't
worth it. Good morning.'

"But I sprung over the counter, and got him by his throat. My father was
so gentle with her; he never would ride her up hill, and now this fellow
had murdered her! I asked him where he had killed her, and I shook him
till he slipped out of my hand. He stood in the door grinning.

"'It didn't take much to kill that bag-of-bones, whose master sleeps
in a packing-case, and waits till his company's finished to eat on the
plate. Shouldn't wonder if you fed her on sugar-bags,' he said; 'and
if you think I've jumped her, you'd better go and look yourself. You'll
find her along the road by the aasvogels that are eating her.'

"I caught him by his collar, and I lifted him from the ground, and
I threw him out into the street, half-way across it. I heard the
bookkeeper say to