There was something sort of careless in his voice, like he had jest dropped in to see a show, and it had come to him sudden that he would enjoy himself fur a minute or two taking part in it. But he wasn't going to get TOO worked up about it, either, fur the show might end by mak-ing him tired, after all.
As he come down the aisle fumbling in his coat, he stopped and begun to slap all his pockets. Then his face cleared, and he dived into a vest pocket.
Everybody looked like they thought he was going to pull something important out of it. But he didn't. All he pulled out was jest one of these here little ordinary red books of cigarette papers. Then he dived fur some loose tobacco, and begun to roll one. I noticed his fingers was long and white and slim and quick. But not excited fingers; only the kind that seems to say as much as talking says.
He licked his cigarette, and then he sauntered ahead, looking up. As he looked up the light fell full on his face fur the first time. He had high cheek bones and iron-gray hair which he wore rather long, and very black eyes. As he lifted his head and looked close at Doctor Kirby, a change went over both their faces. Doctor Kirby's mouth opened like he was going to speak. So did the other feller's. One side of his mouth twitched into something that was too surprised to be a grin, and one of his black eyebrows lifted itself up at the same time. But neither him nor Doctor Kirby spoke.
He stuck his cigarette into his mouth and turned sideways from Doctor Kirby, like he hadn't noticed him pertic'ler. And he turns to the chairman.
"Will," he says. And everybody listens. You could see they all knowed him, and that they all respected him too, by the way they was waiting to hear what he would say to Will. But they was all impatient and eager, too, and they wouldn't wait very long, although now they was hushing each other and leaning forward.
"Will," he says, very polite and quiet, "can Itrouble you for a match?"
And everybody let go their breath. Some with a snort, like they knowed they was being trifled with, and it made 'em sore. His eyebrows goes up agin, like it was awful impolite in folks to snort that-a-way, and he is surprised to hear it. And Will, he digs fur a match and finds her and passes her over.
He lights his cigarette, and he draws a good inhale, and he blows the smoke out like it done him a heap of good. He sees something so interesting in that little cloud of smoke that everybody else looks at it, too.
"Do I understand," he says, "that some one is going to lynch some one, or something of that sort?""That's about the size of it, colonel," says Will.
"Um!" he says, "What for?"
Then everybody starts to talk all at once, half of them jumping to their feet, and making a perfect hullabaloo of explanations you couldn't get no sense out of. In the midst of which the colonel takes a chair and sets down and crosses one leg over the other, swinging the loose foot and smiling very patient. Which Will remembers he is chairman of that meeting and pounds fur order.
"Thank you, Will," says the colonel, like getting order was a personal favour to him. Then Billy Harden gets the floor, and squares away fur a long-winded speech telling why. But Buck Hightower jumps up impatient and says:
"We've been through all that, Billy. That man there has been tried and found guilty, colonel, and there's only one thing to do--string him up.""Buck, _I_ wouldn't," says the colonel, very mild.
But that there man Grimes gets up very sober and steady and says:
"Colonel, you don't understand." And he tells him the hull thing as he believed it to be--why they has voted the doctor must die, the room warm-ing up agin as he talks, and the colonel listening very interested. But you could see by the looks of him that colonel wouldn't never be interested so much in anything but himself, and his own way of doing things. In a way he was like a feller that enjoys having one part of himself stand aside and watch the play-actor game another part of himself is acting out.
"Grimes," he says, when the pock-marked man finishes, "I wouldn't. I really wouldn't.""Colonel," says Grimes, showing his knowledge that they are all standing solid behind him, "WEWILL!"
"Ah," says the colonel, his eyebrows going up, and his face lighting up like he is really beginning to enjoy himself and is glad he come, "indeed!""Yes," says Grimes, "WE WILL!"
"But not," says the colonel, "before we have talked the thing over a bit, I hope?""There's been too much talk here now," yells Buck Hightower, "talk, talk, till, by God, I'm sick of it! Where's that ROPE?""But, listen to him--listen to the colonel!" some one else sings out. And then they was another hullabaloo, some yelling "no!" And the colonel, very patient, rolls himself another smoke and lights it from the butt of the first one. But finally they quiets down enough so Will can put it to a vote.
Which vote goes fur the colonel to speak.
"Boys," he begins very quiet, "I wouldn't lynch this man. In the first place it will look bad in the newspapers, and--""The newspapers be d---d!" says some one.
"And in the second place," goes on the colonel, "it would be against the law, and--""The law be d----d!" says Buck Hightower.
"There's a higher law!" says Grimes.
"Against the law," says the colonel, rising up and throwing away his cigarette, and getting inter-ested.
"I know how you feel about all this negro busi-ness. And I feel the same way. We all know that we must be the negros' masters. Grimes there found that out when he came South, and the idea pleased him so he hasn't been able to talk about anything else since. Grimes has turned into what the Northern newspapers think a typical Southerner is.
"Boys, this thing of lynching gets to be a habit.
There's been a negro lynched to-day. He's the third in this county in five years. They all needed killing. If the thing stopped there I wouldn't care so much. But the habit of illegal killing grows when it gets started.
