Peter's desires. Here the banker brought out the set of papers.
“I'll take it,” decided Peter; “and if the lodge doesn't want it, I'll keep the place myself.”
“I like to deal with a man of decision,” piped the cashier, a wrinkled smile on his sharp face.
Peter pushed in his bag of collections, then Mr. Hooker signed the deed, and Peter signed the land notes. They exchanged the instruments. Peter received the crisp deed, bound in blue manuscript cover. It rattled unctuously. To Peter it was his first step toward a second Tuskegee.
The two negroes walked out of the Planter's Bank filled with a sense of well-doing. Tump Pack was openly proud of having been connected, even in a casual way, with the purchase. As he walked down the steps, he turned to Peter.
“Don' reckon nobody could git a deed off on you wid stoppers in it, does you?”
“We don't know any such word as 'stop,' Tump,” declared Peter, gaily.
For Peter was gay. The whole incident at the bank was beginning to please him. The meeting of a sudden difficulty, his quick decision—it held the quality of leadership. Napoleon had it.
The two colored men stepped briskly through the afternoon sunshine along the mean village street. Here and there in front of their doorways sat the
