Presently, a little short man, fairly yipping with laughter, stumbled back up the street to his store with tears of mirth in his eyes.  A belated merchant stopped him by clapping both hands on his shoulders and shaking some composure into him.

“What is it?  What’s so funny?  Damn it!  I miss ever’thing!”

“I-i-it’s that f-fool Tum-Tump Pack.  Bobbs’s arrested him!”

The inquirer was astounded.

“How the hell can he arrest him when he hit town this minute?”

“Wh-why, Bobbs had an old warrant for crap-shoot—­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.

“May be that, Parson, but hit’s easier to come up before the J.P. and pay off than to fight it through the circuit court.”

Siner pushed his way through the crowd.  “How much do you want, Mr. Bobbs?” he asked briefly.

The constable looked with reminiscent eyes at the tall, well-tailored negro.  He was plainly going through some mental card-index, hunting for the name of Peter Siner on some long-forgotten warrant.  Apparently, he discovered nothing, for he said shortly: 

“How do I know before he’s tried?  Come on, Tump!”

The procession moved in a long noisy line up Pillow Street, the white residential street lying to the west.  It stopped before a large shaded lawn, where a number of white men and women were playing a game with cards.  The cards used by the lawn party were not ordinary playing-cards, but had figures on them instead of spots, and were called “rook” cards.  The party of white ladies and gentlemen were playing “rook.”  On a table in the middle of the lawn glittered some pieces of silver plate which formed the first, second, and third prizes for the three leading scores.

The constable halted his black company before the lawn, where they stood in the sunshine patiently waiting for the justice of the peace to finish his game and hear the case of the State of Tennessee, plaintiff, versus Tump Pack, defendant.