400
PARTISAN REVIEW
ness," and moved it down as before, tracing the structure, until he
came to rest across the thighs, below the triangle. Then he let his hand
fall to his side, with the crop. "Open your mouth," he said to the
girl.
She did so, and he peered earnestly at her teeth. Then he leaned
and whiffed her breath. "It is a good breath," he admitted, as though
~rudgingly.
·
"Yeah," Mr. Simms said, "yeah, you ain't a-finden no better
breath."
"Have you any others?" the Frenchman demanded. "On hand?"
"We got 'em," Mr. Simms said.
"Let me see," the Frenchman said, and moved toward the door
with, apparently, the "insolent expectation" that the group there
would dissolve before him. He went out into the hall, Mr. Simms fol–
lowing. While Mr. Simms locked the door, Cass said to him, "I wish
to speak to you, if you are Mr. Simms."
"Huh?" Mr. Simms said ("grunted" according to the journal),
but looking at Cass became suddenly civil for he could know from
dress and bearing that Cass was not one of the casual hangers-on. So
Mr. Simms admitted the Frenchman to the next room to inspect its
occupant, and returned to Cass. Cass remarked in the journal that
tiouble might have been avoided if he had been more careful to speak
in private, but he wrote that at the time the matter was so much
upon his mind that the men who stood about were as shadows to him.
He explained his wish to Mr. Simms, described Phebe as well
as
possible, gave the name of the trader in Paducah, and offered a liberal
commission. Mr. Simms seemed dubious, promised to do what he
could, and then said, "But nine outa ten you won't git her, Mister.
And we got sumthen here better. You done seen Delphy, and she's
nigh white as airy woman, and a sight more juicy, and that gal you
talk about is nuthen but yaller. Now Delphy-"
"But the young gemmun got a hankeren fer yaller," one of the
hangers-on said, and laughed, and the others laughed too.
Cass struck him across the mouth. "I struck
him
with the side of
my fist,"
Qass
wrote, "to bring blood. I struck him without thought,
and I recollect the surprise which visited me when I saw the blood
on his chin and saw him draw a bowie from
his
shirt-front. I at–
tempted to avoid his first blow, but received it upon my left shoul–
der. Before he could withdraw, I had grasped his wrist in my right
hand, forced it down so that I could also use my left hand, which
sliH had some strength left at that moment, and with a turning mo–
tion of my body I broke his arm across my right hip, and then
knocked him to the floor. I recovered the bowie from the floor, and
