"I got this thumb broken beating a white man up. No, I'll tell the
truth. He was beating me up and I thought he was going to kill me. It
was when Benjamin Harrison had been elected President. I was in Sol
Joe's saloon and I said, 'Hurrah for Harrison.' A white man standing at
the bar there said to me, 'What do you mean, nigger, insulting the
guests here?' And before I knew what he was going to do--bop!--he
knocked me up on the side of the head and put me flat on the floor. He
started to stamp me. My head was roaring, but I grabbed his legs and
held them tight against me and then we was both on the floor fighting it
out. I butted him in the face with my head and beat him in the face with
my fists until he yelled for some one to come and stop me. There was
plenty of white people 'round but none of them interfered. A great
commotion set up and I slipped out the back door and went home during
the excitement.
"When I went back to the saloon again after about a week or so, the
fellow had left two dollars for me to drink up. Sol Joe told me that he
showed the man he was wrong, that I was one of his best customers. To
make Sol and me feel better, he left the two dollars. When I got there
and found the money waiting for me, I just called everybody in the house
up to the bar and treated it out.
"They claimed I had hit him with brass knucks, but when I showed them my
hand--it was swollen double--and then showed them how the thumb was
broken, they agreed on what caused the damage. That thumb never did set
properly. You see, it's out of shape right now.