Old Mr. Suggs looked in Simon's eye, and Simon returned the look for
about three seconds, during which a close observer might have detected a
suspicious working of the wrist of the hand on the cards, but the elder
Suggs did not remark it.
"Wake snakes! day's a-breakin'! Rise, Jack!" said Simon, cutting half a
dozen cards from the top of the pack, and presenting the face of the
bottom one for the inspection of his father.
It was the Jack of hearts!
Old Mr. Suggs staggered back several steps, with uplifted eyes and
hands!
"Marciful master!" he exclaimed, "ef the boy hain't! Well, how in the
round creation of the--! Ben, did you ever? To be sure and sartain,
Satan has power on this yearth!" and Mr. Suggs groaned in very
bitterness.
"You never seed nothin' like that in _Augusty_, did ye, daddy?" asked
Simon, with a malicious wink at Ben.
"Simon, how _did_ you do it?" queried the old man, without noticing his
son's question.
"Do it, daddy? Do it? 'Tain't nothin'. I done it jist as easy
as--shootin'."
Whether this explanation was entirely, or in any degree, satisfactory to
the perplexed mind of Elder Jed'diah Suggs can not, after the lapse of
the time which has intervened, be sufficiently ascertained. It is
certain, however, that he pressed the investigation no farther, but
merely requested his son Benjamin to witness the fact that, in
consideration of his love and affection for his son Simon, and in order
to furnish the donee with the means of leaving that portion of the State
of Georgia, he bestowed upon him the impracticable pony, Bunch.
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