"Anyway," Spearchucker said"Anyway," Spearchucker said, "There are a lot of colored boys over here, and I know quite a few. Every now and then some of them would drop in to visit me. Now and then Hawkeye would stay around but most often he'd cut out. One day I said: 'Hawkeye, how come you don't care for some of my friends?'" "So this guy, " Spearchucker said, nodding toward Hawkeye, "says to me: 'Do you like all the white boys around here?' I said: 'No, Hawkeye, and thank you. ' That what I mean." "The hell with this," Hawkeye said now. "Let's talk about something else." "In a minute," Duke said, looking right at him. "I'm from Georgia," Duke said. "I know that," Spearchucker said. "If you and I had a problem," Duke said, "we'd be the only ones who could understand it. These Yankees couldn't. but what I wanta say is that I don't have a problem, and if y'all do, tell me now." Captain Jones sipped his drink and grinned and looked at the Duke. "No problem with me, Little Duke," he said. "Wait a minute," the Duke said, eyeing Captain Jones.
"How come y'all call me Little Duke?" "Well," Spearchucker said, "Hawkeye wrote me about you two guys and he said you're from Forrest City, Georgia. Right?" "Right," Duke said, "but..." "Your daddy a doctor?" "Yeah" "He used to own a little farm north of town?" "Oh no," Trapper John said. "Please." "Wait a minute," Duke said. "He's right. Let the man talk." "Who tenant-farmed that place?" asked Captain Jones. "John Marshall Jones," Duke said. "I should have been a lawyer," said Oliver Wendell Jones. "What happened to John Marshall Jones?" "He got knifed by another nigra," Duke said. "What happened to his family?" "They went north." "That's right," Captain Jones said. "They went north. You know where they got money for the trip?" "No" "The doctor sold the farm, paid the family's debt and gave my mother a thousand dollars. They called him The Big Duke. Now how do you like that, Little Duke?" Captain Forrest said nothing. He just sat there, looking at Captain Jones and shaking his head. "You see why I got no problem?" Spearchucker said. "Duke," Hawkeye said, as Grant said to Lee at Appomattox: 'You give up?'" "Yeah," the Duke said.