face in the grass. The negro picked him up, his head hanging, and carried him to the fire. His face looked bad, the eyes open. Bugs laid him down gently.
“Will you bring me the water in the bucket, Mister Adams,” he said. “I’m afraid I hit him just a little hard.”
The negro splashed water with his hand on the man’s face and pulled his ears gently. The eyes closed.
Bugs stood up.
“He’s all right,” he said. “There’s nothing to worry about. I’m sorry, Mister Adams.”
“It’s all right.” Nick was looking down at the little man. He saw the blackjack on the grass and picked it up. It had a flexible handle and was limber in his hand. It was made of worn black leather with a handkerchief wrapped around the heavy end.
“That’s a whalebone handle,” the negro smiled. “They don’t make them any more. I didn’t know how well you could take care of yourself and, anyway, I didn’t want you to hurt him or mark him up no more than he is.”
The negro smiled again.
“You hurt him yourself.”
“I know how to do it. He won’t remember nothing of it. I have to do it to change him when he gets that way.”
Nick was still looking down at the little man, lying, his eyes closed in the firelight. Bugs put some wood on the fire.
“Don’t you worry about him none, Mister Adams. I seen him like this plenty of times before.”
“What made him crazy?” Nick asked.
“Oh, a lot of things,” the negro answered from the fire. “Would you like a cup of this coffee, Mister Adams?”
He handed Nick the cup and smoothed the coat he had placed under the unconscious man’s head.
“He took too many beatings, for one thing,” the negro sipped the coffee. “But that just made him sort of simple. Then his sister was his manager and they was always being written up in the papers all about brothers and sisters and how she loved
