He tells me to take them vittles out of his sight and fix him up about a gallon of good cold ice-water and set it alongside his bed in easy reach and then I can leave him be where he is and go on out for awhile and seek amusement looking at the sights and scenes of New York City. But when I gets to the door he calls out to me I better make it two gallons. Which I knows by that he ain't so far gone but what he still can joke.
So I goes on out, just strolling along in a general direction, a-looking at this and admiring of that; and there certainly is a heap for to see and for to admire. The houses is so tall it seems like the sky is resting almost on the tops of 'em and it's mighty near the bluest sky and the clearest ever I seen. It makes you want to get up there and fly round in it. But down below in the street there ain't so very much brightness by reasons of the buildings being so high they cuts off the daylight somewhat. It's like walking through a hollow betwixt steep hills.
People is stirring around every which-a-way, both on foot and in automobiles; and most of the automobiles is all shined up nice and clean like as if the owners was going to take part in an automobile parade in connection with the convention. Everybody is extensively well-dressed, too, but most all is wearing a kind of a brooding look like they had family troubles at home or something else to pester 'em. And they ain't stopping one another when they meets and saying ain't it a lovely morning and passing the time of day, like we does down home. Even some of them which comes out of the same house together just goes bulging on without a word to nobody, and I remarks to myself that a lot of the neighbors in this district must a-had a falling-out amongst themselves and quit speaking. The children on the sidewalk ain't playing much together, neither. Either they plays off by themselves or they just walks along with their keepers.
And there is almost as many dogs as there is children, mostly small, fool-looking dogs; and the dogs is all got keepers, too, dragging 'em on chains and jerking 'em up sharp when they tries to linger and smell round for strange smells and confab with passing dogs. Near as I can make out, the dogs here ain't allowed to behave like regulation dogs, and the children mainly tries to act like as if they was already growed-up, and the growed-up ones has caught the prevailing glumness disease and I is approximately almost the only person in sight that's getting much enjoyment out of being in New York.
All of a sudden I hears the dad-blamedest blim-blamming behind me. I turns round quick and here comes the New York City paid fire department going to a fire. The biggest fire-engine ever I sees goes scooting by, tearing the road wide open and making a most awful racket. Right behind comes the hook-and-ladder wagon with the firemen hanging onto both sides of it, trying to stick fast and put their rubber coats on at the same time; and right behind it comes a big red automobile, licketty-split. Setting up alongside the driver of it is a gentleman in blue clothes and brass buttons, which he's got a big cigar clamped betwixt his teeth and looks highly important. But he ain't wearing a flannel shirt open at the throat, but has got his coat on and it buttoned up, so I assumes it can't be the chief of the department but probably must be the mayor. And in lessen no time they all has swung off into a side street, two squares away, with me taking out after 'em down the middle of the street fast as I can travel.
Now, every town where I've been at heretofore to this, when the fire-bell rings everybody drops whatever they is doing and goes to the fire. Elsewhere from New York, enjoying fires is one of the main pleasures of people; but soon I is surprised to see that I'm pretty near the only person which is trailing along after the department. Whilst I'm still wondering over this circumstance, but still running also, a police grabs me by the arm and asks me where is I going in such a big hurry?
I tells him I is going to the fire. And he says to me that I might as well slow up and save my breath because it's liable to be quite a long trip for me. I asks him how come, and he says the fire is probably three or four miles from here and maybe even considerable further than that. And I says to him, that must make it mighty inconvenient for all concerned, having the fires so far away from the engine-house. At that he sort of chuckles and tells me to be on my way, but to keep my eyes open and not let the cows nibble me. Well, as I says to myself going away from him, I may be green, but I is getting some enjoyment out of being here which is more'n I can say for some folks round these parts, judging by what I has seen up to this here present moment.
So I meanders along, looking at this and that, and turning corners every once in awhile; and after a spell it comes to me that I has meandered myself into an exceedingly different neighborhood from the one I started out from. The houses is not so tall and is more or less rusty-looking; and there's a set of railroad tracks running through, built up on a high trestle; and whilst there has been a falling-off in dogs there has been an ample increase in children; the place just swarms with 'em. These here children is running loose all over the sidewalks and out in the streets, too, but it seems like to me they spends more time quarreling than what they does playing. Or maybe it sounds like quarreling because they has to hollow so loud on account of all the noises occurring round 'em.
I decides to go back, but the trouble is I don't rightly know which is the right way to turn. I've been sashaying about so, first to the right and then to the left, that I ain't got no more sense of direction than one of these here patent egg-beaters. So I rambles on, getting more and more bewilded-like all the time, till I comes to another police and I walks up to him and states my perdicterment to him very polite and tells him I needs help getting back to where I belongs at.
He looks at me very strict, like he can't make up his mind whether he'd better run me in for vagromcy or let me go, and then he says, kind of short:
"Make it snappy, then. Where d'ye live?"
I tells him I has done forgot the name of the street, if indeed I ever heard it, but from the looks of it I judges it must be the chief resident street where the best families resides. I tells him we has just moved in there, Mr. Dallas Pulliam and me, and has started up housekeeping in the department-house which stands on the principal corner. I tells him it's the department-house where the inmates all lives in layers, one upon top of the other, like martins in a martin box.
"You mean apartment-house," he says; "department store, but apartment-house. Well, what's the name of this apartment-house, then, if you can't remember the street?"
That makes me scratch under my hat, too. 'Cause I pointedly doesn't know that neither.
"Nummine the name, boss," I says, "jest you, please suh, tell me whar'bouts is the leadin' apartment-house of this yere city of Noo Yawk; that'll be it—the leadin'est one. 'Cause Mr. Dallas Pulliam he is accustom' to the best whar'ever he go."
But he only acts like he's getting more and more impatient with me.
"Describe it," he says, "describe it! There's one chance in a thousand that might help. What does it look like?"
So I tells him what it looks like—how a little private road winds in and circles round a little place which is like a family-burying-ground, and about the hands downstairs at the front door all being from West Indiana, and about there being two elevators for the residenters and one more for the help, and about us having took over the Sublette family's outfit and all.
"No use," he says, when I gets through, "that sounds just like most of the expensive ones." He starts walking off like he has done lost all interest in my case. Then he calls back to me over his shoulder:
"I'll tell you what's the matter with you," he says; "you're lost."
"Yas, suh," I says; "thanky, suh—tha's whut I been suspicionin' my own se'f," I says, "but I'm much oblige' you agrees wid me."
Still, that ain't helping much, to find out this here police thinks the same way I does about it. Whilst I is lingering there wondering what I better do next, if anything, I sees a street-car go scooting by up at the next crossing, and I gets an idea. If street cars in New York is anything like they is at home, sooner or later they all turns into the main street and runs either past the City Hall or to the Union Depot. So I allows to myself that go on up yonder and climb aboard the next car which comes along and stay on her, no matter how far she goes, till she swings back off the branch onto the trunk-line, and watch out then, and when she goes past our corner drop off. Doing it that-a-way I figures that sooner or later I'm bound to fetch up back home again.
Anyhow, the scheme is worth trying, 'specially as I can't seem to think of no better one. So I accordingly does so.
But I ain't staying on that car so very long; not more than a mile at the most. The reason I gets off her so soon is this: All at once I observes that I is skirting through a district which is practically exclusively all colored. On every side I sees nothing but colored folks, both big and little. Seemingly, everything in sight is organized by and for my race—colored barber-shops, colored undertaking parlors, colored dentists' offices, colored doctors' offices. On one corner there is even a colored vaudeville theatre. And out in the middle of the streets stands a colored police. Excusing that the houses is different and the streets is wider, it's mighty near the same as being on Plunkett's Hill of a Saturday evening. I almost expects to see that there Aesop Loving loafing along all dressed up fit to kill; or maybe Red Hoss Shackleford setting in a door-way following after his regular business of resting, or old Pappy Exall, the pastor of Zion Chapel, rambling by, with that big stomach of his'n sticking out in front of him like two gallons of chitterlings wrapped up in a black gunny-sack. It certainly does fill me with the homesickness longings!
And then a big black man on the pavement opens his mouth wide, nigger-like, and laughs at something till you can hear him half-a-mile, pretty near it; which it is the first sure-enough laugh I has heard since I hit New York. And right on top of that I catches the smell of fat meat frying somewheres.
I just naturally can't stand it no longer. Anyhow, if I'm predestinated to be lost in New York City it's better I should be lost amongst my own kind, which talks my native language, rather than amongst plumb strangers. I give the conductor the high sign and I says to him, I says:
"Cap'n, lemme off, befo' I jumps off!"
So he rings the signalling bell and she stops and lets me off. And verily, before I has went hardly any distance at all, somebody hails me. I is wandering along, sort of miscellaneous, looking in the store windows and up at the tops of the buildings, when a brown-complected man steps up to me and sticks out his hand and he says:
"Hello thar', Alfred Ricketts!—whut you doin' so fur 'way frum ole Lynchburg?"
I says to him he must a-made a mistake. And he says:
"Go on 'way, boy, an' quit yore foolin'! This is bound to be Alfred Ricketts 'at I uster know down in Lynchburg, Furginia. Leas'wise, ef 'tain't him it's his duplicate twin brother."
I tells him no, my name ain't Alfred Ricketts—it's Jeff Poindexter from Paducah, and I ain't never been in no place called Lynchburg in my whole life as I knows of.
He looks at me a minute in a kind of an onbelieving way and then he says he begs my pardon, but his excuse is that I'm the exact spit-and-image of this here Alfred Ricketts, which he says he's done played with him many's the time, when they was both boys together. He says he ain't never in all his born days seen two fellows which they wasn't no kin to each other and yet looked so much similar as him and me does. He says the way we favors each other is absolutely unanimous. He asks me to tell him again what my name is and I does so, and then he says to me:
"Whar'bouts you say you hails frum?"
I says:
"Paducah—tha's whar."
He shakes his head kind of puzzled.
"Paducah?" he says. "I ain't never heared tell of it. Whar is it—Tennessee or Arkansaw?"
I pities his ignorance, but I tells him where Paducah is located at. It seems like the very sound of the name detains his curiosity. He just shoots the inquiring questions at me. He wants to know how big is Paducah and what is its main business, and what river is it on or close to, and what railroads run in there, and a lot more things. So, seeing he's a seeker after truth, I pumps him full. I tells him we not only is got one river at Paducah, we is got two; and I tells him about what railroads we've got running in; and about the big high water of 1913, and about the night-rider troubles some years before that. I tells him a heap else besides; mainly recent doings, such as Judge Priest having retired, and the Illinois Central having built up their shops to double size. Then he excuses himself some more and steps away pretty brisk, and goes into a colored billiard parlor, and I continues on my lonesome way.
But inside of five minutes another fellow speaks to me, and by my own entitled name, too. Only, this one is a kind of a pale tallow-color with a lot of gold teeth showing and very sporty dressed. He comes busting up to me like he's overjoyed to see me, and says:
"Hello, Jeff Poindexter—w'en did you git yere? You shore is a sight fur the sore eyes! How you leave ever'body down in ole Paduke? An' how does yore own copperosity seem to sagashuate?"
All the time he's saying this he's clamping my hand very affectionate, like I was his long-lost brother or something. I tells him his manner is familiar, but that I can't place him. He acts surprised at that—surprised and sort of hurt-like. He asks me don't I remember George Harris from down home? I tells him the onlyest George Harris of color I remembers is an old man which he does janiting for the First National Bank. And he speaks up very prompt and says that's his uncle which he is named for him and used to live with him out by the Illinois Central shops. He says he really don't blame me so much for not placing him, because he left there it's going on eight or nine years ago just before the big high water; but he claims he used to meet me frequent, and says I ain't changed much from the time when I used to be working for Judge Priest. He says he's sure he'd a-recognized me if he'd a-met up with me in China, let alone it's New York. He says he's been living up North for quite a spell now, and is chief owner of a pants-pressing emporium down the street a piece, and has a fine trade and is doing well. And then, before I can get a stray word in edgeways, he goes on to speak of several important things which has happened down home of late. I breaks in and asks him how come he keeps such close track of events 'way down there seeing he's been away so long; and he says he's just naturally so dog-gone fond of that town he subscribes regular for one of the local papers and reads it faithful and hence that's how come he keeps up so well with what's going on.
"W'ich, speakin' of papers, 'minds me of somethin'," he says; "it 'minds me 'at on 'count of readin' the papers so stiddy I has a sweet streak of luck comin' to me this ver' day. I'd lak to tell you 'bout it, Poindexter?"
"Perceed," I says, "perceed."
"I'm goin' to," he says, "but s'posen' fust we gits in off this yere street an' sets down somewhars whar we kin be comfor'able an' not be interrupted. Trouble wid me is," he says, "I knows so dad-blame many people round yere, bein' prominent in business the way I is, 'at ef I stands still more'n a minute somebody is shore to be comin' up an' slappin' me on the back. Does you feel lak a light snack, Poindexter?"
Well, it's getting to be close onto eleven o'clock now and I has not et nothing since breakfast except fifteen cents' worth of peanut candy, so I tells him I is agreeable. We goes into a restaurant run by, for and with colored, and we sets down by ourselves off at a little table and he insists that he's doing the paying-for on account of my being a boy from his old home-town, and he says for me to go the limit, ordering. So I calls for a bone sirloin and some fried potatoes and coffee and a mess of hot biscuits and a piece of mushmelon and one thing and another. It seems like, though, he ain't got much appetite himself. He takes just a cup of coffee, and whilst I is eating all of that provender of his generous providing, he tells me about this here streak of luck which has come his way.
First off, he begins by asking me has I heard tell about the Colored Arabian Prince, which he is now staying in New York? I says no. He says then I will be hearing about him if I sojourns long, because the Colored Arabian Prince is the talk of one and all. He's stopping at the Palace Afro-American Hotel, and he's got more money than what he can spend, and he's going round the world studying how black folks lives in every clime, and he's got thousands and thousands of dollars worth of jewelry which he wears constant. But the piece of jewelry which he prizes as the most precious of all, he lost it only yesterday; which it is a solid gold pin shaped like a four-leaf clover with a genuine real Arabian ruby set in the middle of it. This here gold-tooth boy he tells me this while I is sauntering through the steak. And I can tell from the way he says it that he's leading up to something.
"Yas-suh," he says, "yistiddy is w'en he lose it. An' this mornin' he's got a advertisement notice inserted in the cullid newspapers sayin' ez how he stan' ready an' willin' to pay fifty dollars fur its return to the hotel whar he is stoppin' at, an' no questions asted. An' yere 'bout half-an-hour befo' I runs into you, I'm walkin' 'long the street right up yere a lil' ways, an' I sees somethin' shiny layin' in the gutter an' I stoops down an' picks it up, an' ef it ain't the Cullid Arabian Prince's four-leaf clover pin, dog-gone me! An' yere it is, safe an' sound."
And with that he reach in his pocket and pull it out and let me look at it a brief second. And I says to him that I don't begrudge him his good luck none, only I wishes it might a-been me which had found it, because fifty dollars would come in mighty handy. Then I says to him, I says:
"I s'pose you is now on yore way to hand him back his belongin' an' claim the reward?"
But he shakes his head kind of dubiousome.
"I tell you how 'tis, Poindexter," he says. "To begin wid, an' speakin' in confidences ez one ole-time frien' to 'nother, I prob'ly is the onlyest pusson in this yere city of Noo Yawk w'ich the Cullid Arabian Prince might mek trouble fur me ef I wuz the one w'ich come bringin' him back his lost pin. Ever since he's been yere he's been sendin' his clothes over to my 'stablishment, w'ich it is right round the corner frum the Palace Afro-American Hotel, to be pressed. An' ef I should turn up now wid this yere pin he'd most likely ez not claim 'at I found it stuck in one of his coat lapels an' taken it out an' kep' it. An' the chances is he'd not only refuse fur to pay over the reward, but furthermo' might raise a rookus an' cast a shadder on my good name w'ich it su'ttinly would hurt my perfessional reppitation fur a Cullid Arabian Prince to be low-ratin' me at-a-way. He's lak so many wealthy pussons is—he's suspicious in his mind. So I don't keer to take no chances, much ez I craves to feel them fifty dollars warmin' in the pa'm of my hand. But ef a pusson w'ich wuz a puffec' stranger to him wuz to fetch the pin in an' say he wuz walkin' 'long an' seen it shinin' an' picked it up, he'd jes' hand the reward right over widout a mumblin' word."
"Yas," I says, "tha's so, I reckin."
"'Tain't no manner of doubt but whut hit's so," he says. "Poindexter," he says, brisker-like, "I got an idee—it jest this yere secont come to me: Whut's the reason w'y you can't be the ordained stranger w'ich teks the pin back to him? You does so an' I'll low you ten dollars out of the fifty fur yore time an' trouble. Whut say?"
I studies a minute and then I says I is sociable to the notion. He says he'll go along with me and point out to me the hotel where the Colored Arabian Prince is stopping at and then tarry outside until I gets back to him with the money. I says I'll go just as soon as I has et another piece of mushmelon, which the first piece certainly was very tasty. So he waits until I has done so and then he pays the check, which comes to one-eighty for me and ten cents for him, and we gets up to start forth. But just as we gets to the door, going out, he takes a look at a clock on the wall and he says:
"I can't go 'long wid you—you'll have to go by yo'se'f."
I says:
"Whyfore you can't go?"
He says:
"I jes' this minute remembers 'at I got to ketch the 'leven-forty-two fur Hartford, Connecticut, whar I is gittin' ready to open up a branch 'stablishment—tha's whyfore. I been enjoyin' talkin' wid somebody frum my own dear state so much 'at I lets the time slip by unbeknownst an' now I jes' about kin git abo'de the train at the up-town station ef I hurries." He scratches his head. "Lemme see," he says, "whut-all is we goin' do 'bout 'at now?" Then it seems like he scratches an idea loose. "I got it," he says. "Mainly on 'count of my bein' in sech a rush, an' you bein' frum my home-town, I'm goin' mek you a heap sweeter proposition 'en de one w'ich I already has made. I'm goin' halfen this yere reward wid you; 'at's whut I'm goin' do. Yere's the plan: You jes' hands me over twenty-five dollars now fur my sheer an' 'en you keeps the ontire fifty w'ich he'll pay you. See? I knows I is a fool to be doin' it, but gittin' to Hartford on time today 'll mean a heap mo' to me in the long run 'en whut de diff'unce in the money would. How 'bout it, ole boy?"
I says to him that it listens all right to me, and I'd give him the twenty-five in a minute, only I ain't got it with me. When I says that his face falls so far his under-jaw mighty near grazes the ground, and then he says:
"Well, how much is you got? Is you got twenty—or even fifteen?"
I says I ain't got nothing on me in the way of ready cash, only carfare. But I says I is got something on me that's worth a heap more than twenty-five dollars.
And he says:
I says:
"It's this yere solid gold watch," I says. And I hauls it out and waves it before his eyes. "It's wuth fully forty dollars," I says, "but I ain't needin' it on 'count of havin' a still mo' handsomer one in my trunk, w'ich it wuz give to me by a committee of the w'ite folks two yeahs ago fur savin' a lil' w'ite boy from drowndin' off the upper wharf-boat. You tek the watch an' give me, say ten dollars boot," I says, "an' I'll collect the reward an' thar'by both of us 'll be mekin' money," I says; "'cause you kin sell the watch anywhars fur not lessen forty dollars. I done been offered 'at fur it befo' now."
He studies a minute and then he says that whilst he ain't doubting my word about the watch being worth that much money, still, business is business, and before he consents we'll have to take it to a jewelry-store half-a-square down the street and have it valued.
I says to him, I says:
"Tha's suitable to me, but," I says, "I thought you wuz in a sweat to ketch a train?"
"I'll tek the time," he says. "I kin hurry an' mek it. Come to think of it," he says, "'at train don't leave the up-town station 'twell 'leven-fifty-fo'. 'Leven-forty-two is w'en she leaves frum down-town."
"I'm glad to hear it," I says, "'cause w'en the jewelry-store man has got th'ough 'zaminin' my watch we kin ast him to look at the pin, too, an' tell us ef it's the genuwine article. It mout possibly be," I says, "'at they wuz two of these yere clover-leaf pins floatin' round loose an' one of 'em a imitation. By havin' it 'zamined 'long wid my watch, we both plays safe."
He stops right dead in his tracks.
"Look yere, Poindexter," he says, "whut's the use of all 'is yere projectin' round an' wastin' of time? You trusts me," he says, "an' I trusts you—tha's fair. Yere, boy, you teks the pin an' collects the reward. I teks the watch an' sells it fur whut I kin git fur it. Le's close the deal 'cause I p'intedly is got to hurry frum yere."
"Hole on!" I says. "How 'bout my ten dollars boot?"
"I'll mek it five," he says.
"Gimme the five," I says.
So he counts out five ones and yells something to me about the Palace Afro-American Hotel being straight down the street about half-a-mile, on the left-hand side, and in another second he's gone from view round the nearest corner.
But I does not go to look for no Afro-American Hotel, nor yet for no Colored Arabian Prince, neither. Something seems to warn me 'twould only be a waste of time, so instead of which, as I steps along, I figures out where I stands in the swap. And it comes to this: I is in to the extent of five dollars in cash, also one dollar and eighty cents' worth of nourishing vittles, and a clover-leaf pin, which it must be worth all of seventy-five cents unless the price of brass has took a big fall.
I is out to the extent of telling one lie about saving a little boy from drowning and also one old imitation-gold watchcase without any mechanical works in it. Likewise and furthermore, I can imagine the look on that gold-tooth nigger's face when he gets time to take a good look at what he's traded for, and that alone I values at fully two dollars more in private satisfaction to J. Poindexter. So, taking one thing and another, getting lost has been worth pretty close on to ten dollars, besides which it has taught me the lesson that when a trusting stranger goes forth in the Great City he's liable to fall amongst thieves, but if only he stays honest himself and keeps his eye skinned, he cannot possibly suffer no harm at the hands of the wicked deceiver.
Chapter V
Wheatley Court.
With this much to work on, the rest is plenty easy. A man in a drugstore consults in a telephone book and gives me the full specifications for getting back to where I has strayed from, which it turns out it is fully three miles away from there in a southeast direction. But I buys an ice-cream soda and a pack of chewing-gum before I asks the drugstore man for his friendly aid. Already I has took note of the fact that most of the folks in New York acts like they hates to answer your questions without you has done 'em some kind of a favor first. So I places this man under obligations to me by trading with him and then he's willing to help me. That is, he's willing, but he ain't right crazy with joy over the idea of it. If I'd a-bought two ice-cream sodas I think probably he's a-moved more brisk-like. Still, he does it. So, inside of an hour more, what with riding part of the ways on street-cars and walking the rest, I is home again and glad to be there.
Even so, my being gone so long ain't put nobody out, because Mr. Dallas is yet in bed, but is now thinking seriously about getting up. He complains of feeling slightly better than what he did awhile back. Still, he ain't got so very much appetite. Orange juice and black coffee seems ample to satisfy his desires; he also continues to remain very partial to the ice-water. He says he must hurry up and dress and get outdoors because he's got an engagement to go with one of the ladies which he met the night before and look at a little car which she's thinking about buying it, but wants to get his expert opinion on it first. He don't specify her name, but I guesses it's the puny one of the two—this here Miss Bill-Lee DeWitt.
Whilst I is laying out his clothes for him to put on he calls out to me from the bathroom that I will doubtless be interested to know that we'll be staying on in New York permanent. I asks him how come, and he says he's passed his word to go in partners with this here Mr. H. C. Raynor selling oil-properties.
I says to him, I says:
"'Scuse me, Mr. Dallas, but it sho' does look lak to me we is movin' powerful fast. Only yistiddy we gits yere, an' today we is fixin' to bust into bus'ness. Tha's travelin'!"
He says you have to move fast in New York if you don't want to get run over and trompled on and I says that certainly is the Gospel truth. And he says when you meets up with an attractive proposition up here in this country you is just naturally obliged to grab holt of it quick or else somebody else 'll be beating you to it. I feels myself bound to agree with that, too; and then he goes on shaving himself and abusing of his skin for being so tender.
I ponders a spell and then I asks him, sort of casual and accidental-like, when was it that Mr. Raynor displayed this here desirable business notion to him and he give his promise for to enter into it?
"Oh," he says, "it was late last night—after we started back from the road-house. He's going to let me have a full half interest," he says.
I don't say nothing out loud to that. But I casts my rolling eyes up to the ceiling and I says in low tones to myself, I says: "Uh huh, uh huh!" just like that.
That's all I says. And I makes sure he ain't overhearing me, but all the time I'm doing considerable thinking. I'm thinking that, excusing one of 'em is white folks and the other is mulatto-complected and excusing that one has got decorated teeth and the other one just plain teeth, there's something mighty similar someway betwixt this here Mr. Raynor and that there colored imposer, which he called himself George Harris. I can't make up my mind whether it's their expressions or the way they looks at you out of their eyes, or the engaging way they both has of being so generous-like on short notice. But it pointedly must be something or other, because when I broods about one I can't keep from brooding about the other.
But, naturally, I keeps all that to myself. After Mr. Dallas has done gone out I fixes myself up something solid to eat and then, along about three o'clock I drifts downstairs and engages in friendly conversation with two of them West Indian boys. Before very long the subject of the educated bones gets introduced into the talk someway, and it so happens I has a set in my pocket and I gets 'em out and sort of cuddles 'em in my hand and rattles 'em gentle; and one of the two boys feels persuaded to suggest that, seeing as the work ain't pressing, us three might ramble on back into a little kind of a store-room back of the main hall downstairs and make a few passes just to keep the time from hanging heavy on our hands.
Now, privately I has always contended that craps-dice is meant for home folks only. These here foreigners should not never toy with 'em if they expects to get ahead in the world. So the entertainment turns out just like I expected 'twould. When fifteen minutes, or maybe twenty, has gone by very pleasantly there is not no reason why I should linger with 'em, and I piroots back on upstairs taking along with me twenty-two dollars and fifty cents of strange money to get acquainted with the spare change in my pants pocket and leaving them two West Indian delegates holding a grand lodge of sorrow betwixt themselves.
So that is all of undue importance which happens on our second day.
Chapter VI
Also in that time I has learned much. When I reflects back on how sorghum-green I was when we landed here off the steam-cars, I actually feels right sorry for myself—not knowing what a road-house was, and figuring that when somebody mentioned sub-let apartments they was describing the name of a family, and getting lost in Harlem the first time I went forth rambling, and all them other fool things which I done and said at the outsetting of our experiences! No longer ago than last evening I was saying to some of the fellow-members up at the Pastime Colored Pleasure and Recreation Club, on One-Hundred and Thirty-fifth street, that it's a born wonder they didn't throw a loop over me and cart me off to the idiotic asylum for safety keeping till the newness had done wore off.
I must also say for Mr. Dallas that he's progressed very rapid, too. And likewise the new business must be paying him powerful well right from the go-off, because we certainly is rolled up in the lap-robes of luxury and living off the top skimmings of the cream.
Before we has been here a week I notices there's a change taking place in Mr. Dallas. He's beginning to get dissatisfied with things as they is and craving after things as they ain't. Near as I can figure it out, he's caught a kind of restlessness disease which it appears to afflict everybody up in these parts, one way or another. It seems like to me, though, he must a-taken it early and in a violent form.
The first symptoms is when he fetches in one of these here little slick-headed Japanee boys to do the cooking and et cetera, so's I can wait on him more exclusively. Anyway, that's the reason which he assigns to me, but all the same I retains my own personal views on the matter. We don't need no extra hands to help run our establishment no more'n we needs water in our shoes, and my onspoken opinion is that Mr. Dallas thinks maybe the place look more high-tonish by having an imported strange foreigner fussing round. Privately, I don't lose no time designating to this here Koga, which is the slick-headed boy's name, where he gets off so far as I is concerned. No sooner does he arrive in amongst our midst than I tolls him back into the far end of the butler's pantry and I says to him, I says:
"Yaller kid, lis'sen: I ain't 'sponsible fur yore comin' yere, but jest so shorely ez you starts messin' in my bus'ness I'm goin' be 'sponsible fur yore everlastin' departure. You 'tends to yore wu'k an' I 'tends to mine an' tharby we gits along harmonious. But one sign of meddlin' frum you an' I'll jest reach back yere to my flank pocket whar I totes me a hosstile razor an' 'en you better pick out w'ich one of these yere winders you perfurs to jump out of."
He just sort of grins at that and sucks some loose air in betwixt his front teeth.
"Tha's right," I says, "save up yore breathin', 'cause ef I teks after you you'll shore require to have plenty of it on hand fur pu'pposes of fast travelin'. Chile," I says, "you's had yore warnin'—so harken an' give heed or else you'll find yo'se'f carved up so fine they'll have to fune'lize you on the 'stallment plan. Mr. Dallas he may be the big boss," I says, "but you lakwise better pay a heap of 'tention to the fust assistant deputy sub-boss w'ich I'm," I says, "him."
Saying thus I gives him a savigrous look backward over my shoulder and walks away stepping kind of light on my feet like a cat fixing for to pounce. He ain't saying a word; he's just standing there reserving some more breath.
Of course I ain't really aiming to start no race war. Always it has been my constant aim to keep out of rough jams with one and all but, even so, I figures that it's just as well to get the jump on that there Japanee human-siphon and render him tame and docile from the beginning.
Next thing is that Mr. Dallas begins faulting the clothes he brought along with him from home. He says to me they appeared all right when he was having 'em made to order for him by M. Marcus & Son, corner of Third and Kentucky Avenue, which that is our leading merchant-tailor, but he can see now that they ain't got the real New York snap to 'em. And the ensuing word is that one of them swell Fifth Avenue shops is making him a full new outfit. Well, I must admit that suits me from the ground up; it's a sign to me I'm about to inherit.
And the next thing is that he invests in several cases of fancy drinkings which a bootlegging white man fetches it up to us under cover of the darkness. I sees Mr. Dallas counting out the money for to pay him, and it certainly amounts to an important sum. I ain't questioning the wisdom of this step neither, seeking that the stock we fetched along with us from the South is vanishing very brisk, and the new supply ought to last me and him for no telling how long, if we both is careful.
The trouble with Mr. Dallas, though, is he ain't careful. Scarcely a day passes without some of his new-made Northern friends dropping in on him and sopping up highballs and cocktails and this and that. That there Mr. Bellows is one of our most earnest customers. He'll set down empty alongside a full bottle and stay right there till the emptiness and the fullness has done changed places. Also, when it comes to liberal consuming of somebody else's liquor, Mr. H. C. Raynor has his ondoubted merits. And when Mr. Dallas gives a party, which he does frequent and often, the wines and such just flows like manna from the rod of Jonah. Still, that ain't pestering me much. When white folks lives high in the front parlor niggers gets fat back in the kitchen.
Then on top of all this he buys himself an automobile and hires a white chauffeur for to run her. She's one of these here low-cut, high-powerful cars which when you wants to go somewheres in a hurry you just steps on her and—b-z-z-z—you is done arrived! But she's plenty costive to run. Every time she takes a deep breath there's another half-gallon of gasoline gone. If the truth must be known, Mr. Dallas has not only bought one car; he's bought two. But we don't see the second one, which is a dark blue runabout, only when Miss Bill-Lee comes round, because it seems Mr. Dallas has loaned it out to her for her own use, him paying the garage bills. Betwixt themselves they speaks of it as a loan, but I thinks to myself that this probably is predestinated to be one of the most permanent loans in the history of the entire loaning business.
So it goes. Every day, pretty near it, delivery boys comes knocking at the service door bringing this and that for Mr. Dallas. If it ain't half a dozen fresh pairs of shoes it's a sack-full of these here golf utensils or some new silk pyjamas; and if it ain't another motoring coat or an elaborous smoking jacket, it's a set of silver-topped brushes and combs and bottles and things for his toilet table, with his initials cut on 'em. It seems like he must stop in somewheres every morning on his way down-town to business and buy himself something. So I judges the money must be coming in mighty brisk at the bung-hole, because it certainly is pouring out mighty steady from the spigots.
It also must be a powerful handy and convenient business to be in, for not only does it appear to pay so well, but it practically almost runs itself. Often Mr. Dallas ain't starting down-town till the morning is 'most gone, and sometimes he gets back home as early as four o'clock in the evening. Come Saturday, he don't go near the headquarters at all. That astonishes me deeply, because down home on a Saturday the stores all stays open till late at night on account of the country people coming into town and the hands at the tobacco warehouses and the factories and all being paid off, and the niggers being out doing their trading. Especially the niggers. You take the average one of 'em, and if he can't spend all he's got on Saturday night, it practically spoils his Sunday for him. He ain't aiming to waste none of his money, saving it. So, with us, Saturday is the busiest day in the week. But seemingly not so in this locality.
In fact, so far as I observes to date, the folks up here has got a special separate system of their own for doing pretty near everything. More times than one enduring this past month I has said to myself that there certainly is a big difference betwixt Paducah and New York City. You don't notice it so much in Paducah, but, lawsy, how it does prone into you when you gets to New York!