parrallel between dogs and horses and Peter Siner newly returned from Harvard.
“God'lmighty has set his limit on dogs, horses, and niggers, Mr. Tomwit. Thus far and no farther. Take a nigger baby at birth; a nigger baby has no fontanelles. It has no window toward heaven. Its skull is sealed up in darkness. The nigger brain can never expand and absorb the universe, sir. It can never rise on the wings of genius and weigh the stars, nor compute the swing of the Pleiades. Thus far and no farther! It's congenital.
“Now, take this Peter Siner and his disgraceful fight over a nigger wench. Would you expect an educated stud horse to pay no attention to a mare, sir? You can educate a stud till—”
“But hold on!” interrupted the old cavalryman. “I've known as gentlemanly stallions as—as anybody!”
The old attorney cleared his throat, momentarily taken aback at this failure of his metaphor. However he rallied with legal suppleness:
“You are talking about thoroughbreds, sir.”
“I am, sir.”
“Good God, Tomwit! you don't imagine I'm comparing a nigger to a thoroughbred, sir!”
On the street corners, or piled around on cotton-bales down on the wharf, the negro men of the village discussed the fight. It was for the most part a purely technical discussion of blows and counters and kicks, and of the strange fact that a college education failed
