Now you want something from me,
and you can't have it."
"We shall see," replied the colonel. "I bested you then, and I'll best
you now."
"We shall see," said Fetters.
Fetters was not at all alarmed, indeed he smiled rather pityingly.
There had been a time when these old aristocrats could speak, and the
earth trembled, but that day was over. In this age money talked, and
he had known how to get money, and how to use it to get more. There
were a dozen civil suits pending against him in the court house there,
and he knew in advance that he should win them every one, without
directly paying any juryman a dollar. That any nigger should get away
while he wished to hold him, was--well, inconceivable. Colonel French
might have money, but he, Fetters, had men as well; and if Colonel
French became too troublesome about this nigger, this friendship for
niggers could be used in such a way as to make Clarendon too hot for
Colonel French. He really bore no great malice against Colonel French
for the little incident of their school days, but he had not forgotten
it, and Colonel French might as well learn a lesson. He, Fetters, had
not worked half a lifetime for a commanding position, to yield it to
Colonel French or any other man. So Fetters smoked his cigar
tranquilly, and waited at the hotel for his anticipated verdicts. For
there could not be a jury impanelled in the county which did not have
on it a majority of men who were mortgaged to Fetters.
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