While I was putting the food on the box he looked at my books; he read their names out aloud.

'Elementary Physiology,' 'First Principles.' "'Golly!' he said; 'I've got a lot of dry stuff like that at home I got for Sunday-school prizes; but I only keep them to light my pipe with now; they come in handy for that.' Then he asked me if I had ever read a book called the 'Black-eyed Creole.' 'That is the style for me,' he said; 'there where the fellow takes the nigger-girl by the arm, and the other fellow cuts it off! That's what I like.' "But what he said after that I don't remember, only it made me feel as if I were having a bad dream, and I wanted to be far away.
"When he had finished eating he did not stay long; he had to go and see some girls home from a prayer-meeting; and he asked how it was he never saw me walking out with any on Sunday afternoons.

He said he had lots of sweethearts, and he was going to see one the next Wednesday on a farm, and he asked me to lend my mare.

I told him she was very old.

But he said it didn't matter; he would come the next day to fetch her.
"After he was gone my little room got back to its old look.