“Wait for w’at?”

“What you would take for the whole block?”

“I don’t want to sell him!”

“I’ll give you ten thousand dollah for it.”

“Ten t’ousand dollah for dis house?  Oh, no, dat is no price.  He is blame good old house,—­dat old house.” (Old Charlie and the Colonel never swore in presence of each other.) “Forty years dat old house didn’t had to be paint!  I easy can get fifty t’ousand dollah for dat old house.”

“Fifty thousand picayunes; yes,” said the Colonel.

“She’s a good house.  Can make plenty money,” pursued the deaf man.

“That’s what make you so rich, eh, Charlie?”

“Non, I don’t make nothing.  Too blame clever, me, dat’s de troub’.  She’s a good house,—­make money fast like a steamboat,—­make a barrel full in a week!  Me, I lose money all de days.  Too blame clever.”

“Charlie!”

“Eh?”

“Tell me what you’ll take.”

“Make?  I don’t make nothing.  Too blame clever.”

“What will you take?”

“Oh!  I got enough already,—­half drunk now.”

“What will you take for the ’ouse?”

“You want to buy her?”

“I don’t know,”—­(shrug),—­“may_be_,—­if you sell it cheap.”

“She’s a bully old house.”

There was a long silence.  By and by old Charlies commenced—­

“Old Injin Charlie is a low-down dog.”

“C’est vrai, oui!” retorted the Colonel in an undertone.

“He’s got Injin blood in him.”

“But he’s got some blame good blood, too, ain’t it?”

The Colonel nodded impatiently.

“Bien! Old Charlie’s Injin blood says, ’sell de house, Charlie, you blame old fool!’ Mais, old Charlie’s good blood says, ’Charlie! if you sell dat old house, Charlie, you low-down old dog, Charlie, what de Compte De Charleu make for you grace-gran’muzzer, de dev’ can eat you, Charlie, I don’t care.’”

“No!” And the no rumbled off in muttered oaths like thunder out on the Gulf.  The incensed old Colonel wheeled and started off.

“Curl!” (Colonel) said Charlie, standing up unsteadily.

The planter turned with an inquiring frown.

“I’ll trade with you!” said Charlie.

The Colonel was tempted. “’Ow’l you trade?” he asked.

“My house for yours!”

The old Colonel turned pale with anger.  He walked very quickly back, and came close up to his kinsman.

“Charlie!” he said.

“Injin Charlie,”—­with a tipsy nod.

But by this time self-control was returning.  “Sell Belles Demoiselles to you?” he said in a high key, and then laughed “Ho, ho, ho!” and rode away.

A cloud, but not a dark one, overshadowed the spirits of Belles Demoiselles’ plantation.  The old master, whose beaming presence had always made him a shining Saturn, spinning and sparkling within the bright circle of his daughters, fell into musing fits, started out of frowning reveries, walked often by himself, and heard business from his overseer fretfully.