can't say if I'm goin' to carry him back or no. You see it's like this: Robin, he's a good boy. We set a heap by him, we do. And Robin was doin' well, keepin' the bale books, lookin' after the weighin', and takin' general charge around the cotton gin. Always had a good word for me in the mornin' when I hands over the keys, me bein' night watchman, Suh. 'Well, Uncle Noah,' it would be, 'didn't let anybody steal presses, did you?' 'No, Mistuh Robin,' I'd say, 'didn't lose nary press last night, and only part of the smokestack.' We was that way, me and Robin. And when Mistuh Phil and his folks started off to visit their married daughter, up in Richmond, he says to me, 'Uncle Noah, I expect you to look after Robin while I'm gone, and see that he don't git into no trouble.' Them was his very words, Suh." 56 "And Robin's kept you busy, eh?" says I. "Well, he's a good boy, Robin is," insists Uncle Noah. "I reckon it took him sort of sudden, this wantin' to leave Goober. Just had to come to New York, it seems like. I dunno what for, and I ain't askin'; only I promised his Uncle Phil I'd see he didn't git into no trouble, and—well, I'm a waitin' around, you see, waitin' around." "How'd you come to locate him, Uncle?" says I. "We-e-ell," says he, "I reckon I shouldn't a done it nohow, but he left the envelope to her57 letter on his desk,—a Miss Toots it come from,—and the address was on the back. It was directly afterwards that Robin quits Goober so sudden." 57 "Ah-ha!" says I. "Maggie Toots again, eh?" Looked like the myst'ry was solved too, and while I wa'n't plannin' to restrict any interstate romance, or throw the switch on love's young dream, I thought as long as I'd gone this far I might as well take a look. "Maybe he'll be too busy to receive any home delegation just now," says I; "but if you want to stick around while I do a little scoutin' inside, Uncle, I'll be out after a bit." "I'll be a waitin'," says Uncle Noah, smilin' patient, and I leaves him backed up against the front of the buildin' with his hands crossed peaceful on the top of his home-made walkin' stick. It's some giddy push I gets into after I've put up my dollar for a ballroom ticket and crowded in where a twenty-piece orchestra was busy with the toe-throbby stuff. And
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