The Persimmon was a queer-looking negro; his head was a long diagonal from its peak down to his pendent lower lip, for he had no chin.  The salient points on this black slope were the Persimmon’s sad, protruding yellow eyeballs, over which the lids always drooped about half closed.  An habitual tipping of this melancholy head to one side gave the Persimmon the look of one pondering and deploring the amount of sin there was in the world.  This saintly impression the Persimmon’s conduct and language never bore out.

At the time of the Persimmon’s remarks about the raft two of Peter’s callers, Jim Pink Staggs and Parson Ranson, took the roustabout to task.  Jim Pink based his objection on the grounds of glutting the labor market.

“Ef us niggers keeps turnin’ too many raf’s loose fuh de prize-money,” he warned, “somebody’s goin’ to git ‘spicious, an’ you’ll ruin a good thing.”

The Persimmon absorbed this with a far-away look in his half-closed eyes.

“It’s a ticklish job,” argued Parson Ranson, “an’ I wouldn’t want to wuck at de debbil’s task aroun’ de ribber, ca’se you mout fall in, Persimmon, an’ git drownded.”

“I wouldn’t do sich a thing a-tall,” admitted the Persimmon, “but I jes’ natchelly got to git ten dollars to he’p pay on my divo’ce.”

“I kain’t see whut you want wid a divo’ce,” said Jim Pink, yawning, “when you been ma’ied three times widout any.”

“It’s fuh a Christmas present,” explained the Persimmon, carelessly, “fuh th’ woman I’m libin’ wid now.  Mahaly’s a great woman fuh style.  I’m goin’ to divo’ce my other wives, one at a time lak my lawyer say.”

“On what grounds?” asked Peter, curiously.

“Desuhtion.”

“Desertion?”

“Uh huh; I desuhted ’em.”

Jim Pink shook his head, picked up a pebble, and began idly juggling it, making it appear double, single, treble, then single again.

“Too many divo’ces in dis country now, Persimmon,” he moralized.

“Well, whut’s de cause uv ’em?” asked the Persimmon, suddenly bringing his protruding yellow eyes around on the sleight-of-hand performer.

Jim Pink was slightly taken aback; then he said: 

“‘Spicion; nothin’ but ’spicion.”

“Yeah, ’spicion,” growled the Persimmon; “‘spicion an’ de husban’ leadin’ a irreg’lar life.”

Jim Pink looked at his companion, curiously.

“The husban’—­leadin’ a irreg’lar life?”

“Yeah,”—­the Persimmon nodded grimly,—­“the husban’ comin’ home at onexpected hours.  You know whut I means, Jim Pink.”

Jim Pink let his pebble fall and lowered the fore legs of his chair softly to the ground.

“Now, look heah, Persimmon, you don’ want to be draggin’ no foreign disco’se into yo’ talk heah befo’ Mr. Siner an’ Parson Ranson.”

The Persimmon rose deliberately.

“All I want to say is, I drapped off’n de matrimonial tree three times a’ready, Jim Pink, an’ I think I feels somebody shakin’ de limb ag’in.”