graveyard, and the gold done us a still bigger kindness; for if the excited fools hadn’t let go all holts and made that rush to get a look we’d ’a’ slept in our cravats to-night — cravats warranted to wear, too — longer than we’d need ’em.”

They was still a minute — thinking; then the king says, kind of absent-minded like:

“Mf! And we reckoned the niggers stole it!”

That made me squirm!

“Yes,” says the duke, kinder slow and deliberate and sarcastic, “we did.”

After about a half a minute the king drawls out:

“Leastways, I did.”