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“Wh-why, Bobbs had an old warrant for crap-shooting—three years old—before the war. Just as Tump ​was a-coming down the street at the head of the coons, out steps Bobbs—” Here the little man was overcome.

The merchant from the corner opened his eyes.

“Arrested him on an old crap charge?”

The little man nodded. They gazed at each other. Then they exploded simultaneously.

Peter left his obese mother and hurried to the corner, Dawson Bobbs, the constable, had handcuffs on Tump's wrists, and stood with his prisoner amid a crowd of arguing negroes.

Bobbs was a big, fleshy, red-faced man, with chilly blue eyes and a little straight slit of a mouth in his wide face. He was laughing and chewing a sliver of toothpick.

“O Tump Pack,” he called loudly, “you kain't git away from me! If you roll bones in Hooker's Bend, you'll have to divide your winnings with the county.” Dawson winked a chill eye at the crowd in general.

“But hit's out o' date, Mr. Bobbs,” the old gray-headed minister, Parson Ranson, was pleading.