Then becoming aware of the small
figure which had stolen up the path as he slept and now stood
before him in the uncertain light, he fell to rubbing his eyes
with the knuckles of his plump hands. The pale night mist out of
the silent depths of the forest had assumed shapes as strange.
"Who are you?" he demanded, and his voice rumbled thickly forth
from his capacious chest. The very sound was sleek and unctuous.
"I'm Hannibal," said the small figure. He was meditating flight;
he glanced over his shoulder toward the woods.
"No, you ain't. He's been dead a thousand years, more or less.
Try again," recommended the man.
"I'm Hannibal Wayne Hazard," said the boy. The man quitted his
chair.
"Well--I am glad to know you, Hannibal Wayne Hazard. I am Slocum
Price--Judge Slocum Price, sometime major-general of militia and
ex-member of congress, to mention a few of those honors my fellow
countrymen have thrust upon me." He made a sweeping gesture with
his two hands outspread and bowed ponderously.
The boy saw a man of sixty, whose gross and battered visage told
its own story. There was a sparse white frost about his ears;
and his eyes, pale blue and prominent, looked out from under
beetling brows. He wore a shabby plum-colored coat and tight,
drab breeches. About his fat neck was a black stock, with just a
suggestion of soiled linen showing above it. His figure was
corpulent and unwieldy.
The man saw a boy of perhaps ten, barefoot, and clothed in
homespun shirt and trousers.
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