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“Yas, suh, think I do. Well den, suh, ef I wuz runnin’ dis town seems to me I’d git a crowd of strong-minded gen’elmen together some evenin’ in the dark of the moon an’ let ’em call on dis yere slick-haided half-strainer an’ invite him to tek his foot in his hand an’ marvil further. Ef one of ’em wuz totin’ a rope in his hand sorter keerless lak it might help. Ropes is powerful influential. An’ the sight of tar an’ feathers meks a mighty strong argument, too, Ise heared tell.”

“Jeff,” said the judge, “I’m astonished that you’d even suggest sech a thing! Mob law is worse even than no law at all. Besides,” he added–and now there was a small twinkle in his eye to offset to a degree the severity in his tones–“besides, the feller that was bein’ called on by the committee might decline to take the hint and then purty soon you might have another self-made martyr on your hands. But ef he ran away on his own hook now–ef something came up that made him go of his own accord and go fast and cut a sort of a cheap figure in the eyes of his deluded followers whilst he was goin’–that’d be a different thing altogether. Start a crowd of folks, white or black or brown, to laughin’ at a feller and they’ll quit believin’ in him. Worshipin’ a false god and laughin’ at him at the same time never has been successfully done yit.”

He sucked his pipe. “Jeff,” he resumed, “what do you know, ef anything, about the past career and movements of this here J. Talbott Et Cetery?”

Jeff knew a good deal–at second hand. Didn’t the object of his deepest aversions persist in almost nightly calls upon the object of his deepest affections? Paying such calls, didn’t the enemy spend hours–hours upon hours doubtless–pouring into Ophelia’s ear accounts of his recent triumphs as an uplifter in other towns and other states? Didn’t the fascinated and flattered Ophelia in turn recount these tales to one whose opportunities for traveling and seeing the great world had been more circumscribed? Had not Jeff writhed in jealous misery the while he heard the annals of a rival’s successes? So Jeff made prompt answer.

“Yas, suh, I suttinly does. Ise heared a right smart ’bout dis yere Duvall’s past life frum–frum somebody. ‘Cordin’ to the way he norrates it, he wuz in Nashville, Tennessee ‘fore he come yere; an’ ‘fore dat in Mobile, Alabama; an’ ‘fore dat in Little Rock, Arkansaw. Seem lak w’en he ain’t organizin’ or speechifyin’ he ain’t got nothin’ better to do den run round amongst young cullid gals braggin’ ’bout the places he’s been an’ the things he done whilst in ’em.”

Jeff spoke with an enhanced bitterness.

“I see. Then I take it ef he spends so much time in seekin’ out female society that he’s not a married man?”

“So he say–so he say! But, Jedge Priest, ef ever I looked on the spittin’-image of a natchel-born marryin’ nigger, dat ver’ same Duvall is de one.”

Judge Priest seemed not to have heard this last. He sat for a bit apparently studying the tips of his square-toed, low-quarter shoes.

“Jeff,” he said when he had given his feet a long half minute of seeming consideration, “I would like to know some facts about the previous life and general history of the individual we’ve been discussin’–I really would. In fact my curiosity is sech that I might even be willin’ to spend a little money out of my own pocket, ef needs be, in order to find out. So I was jest wonderin’ whether you wouldn’t like to take a little trip, with all expenses paid, and tour round through some of our sister states and make a few private inquiries. It occurs to me that everything considered you might make a better job of it as an amateur investigator than a regular professional detective of a different color might. Do you know where by any chance you could git hold of a good photograph of this here individual–I mean without lettin’ him know anything about it?”