I felt like an empty meal bag with surprise. Then I says, "0f courseI sometimes was meaning to make you a present, Captain,"

"No," he says. "That's not it. It's this way. The niggers is sotricky, they'd drop you overboard, tied to a chunk of iron, if I told'em they might, don't you see? And if I don't tell them they might,seems as if I ought to have half. Because," he says, "they'd love todo it, because they're that way, those niggers, and it seems thatway, as if I'd ought to have half, don't it?"

"Why don't you take it all?" I says, sarcastic and mad.

"Why?" he says, looking like a full moon that was shocked. "No! Thatwouldn't be fair, don't you see?"

I kept still a while, and then I thought maybe there'd be a way ortwo out, and I spoke mild.