“When yo’ get to feelin’ like sleep, young boss, Mas’r Slosson he says I show yo’ to yo’ chamber.”  It was Slosson’s boy Eph.

“Did you-all happen to notice what they’re doing in the tavern now?” asked Hannibal.

“I low they’re makin’ a regular hog-killin’ of it,” said Eph smartly.  Hannibal descended from the fence.

“Yes, you can show me my chamber,” he said, and his tone was severe.  What a white man did was not a matter for a black man to criticize.  They went toward the open door of the tavern.  Mr. Slosson’s corn whisky had already wrought a marked transformation in the case of Slosson himself.  His usually terse speech was becoming diffuse and irrelevant, while vacant laughter issued from his lips.  Yancy was apparently unaffected by the good cheer of which he had partaken, but Murrell’s dark face was flushed.  The Scratch Hiller’s ability to carry his liquor exceeded anything he had anticipated.

“You-all run along to bed, Nevvy,” said Yancy, as Hannibal entered the room.  “I’ll mighty soon follow you.”

Eph secured a tin candle-stick with a half-burnt candle in it and led the way into the passage back of the bar.

“Mas’r Slosson’s jus’ mo’ than layin’ back!” he said, as he closed the door after them.

“I reckon you-all will lay back, too, when you get growed up,” retorted Hannibal.

“No, sir, I won’t.  White folks won’t let a nigger lay back.  Onliest time a nigger sees co’n whisky’s when he’s totin’ it fo’ some one else.”

“I reckon a nigger’s fool enough without corn whisky,” said Hannibal.  They mounted a flight of stairs and passed down a narrow hall.  This brought them to the back of the building, and Eph pushed open the door on his right.

“This heah’s yo’ chamber,” he said, and preceding his companion into the room, placed the candle on a chair.

“Well—­I low I clean forgot something!” cried Hannibal.

“If it’s yo’ bundle and yo’ gun, I done fotched ’em up heah and laid ’em on yo’ bed,” said Eph, preparing’ to withdraw.

“I certainly am obliged to you,” said Hannibal, and with a good night, Eph retired, closing the door after him, and the boy heard the patter of his bare feet as he scuttled down the hall.

The moon was rising and Hannibal went to the open window and glanced out.  His room overlooked the back yard of the inn and a neglected truck patch.  Starting from a point beyond the truck patch and leading straight away to the woodland beyond was a fenced lane, with the corn-field and the pasture-lot on either hand.  Immediately below his window was the steeply slanting roof of a shed.  For a moment he considered the night, not unaffected by its beauty, then, turning from the window, he moved his bundle and rifle to the foot of the bed, where they would be out of his way, kicked off his trousers, blew out the candle and lay down.  The gossip of the men in the bar ran like a whisper through the house, and with it came frequent bursts of noisy laughter.  Listening for these sounds the boy dozed off.