 Chapter 14 of J. Poindexter, Colored by Urban S. Cobb. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Oiled Skids Anyway, that's that, as we says up here. I will now pass along to what comes to pass about two weeks later on. All along, through them two weeks, Mr. Dallas don't impress me like a young man should, which he is starting out in the new year, full of good cheer and bright prospects. As the catchphrase goes, he ain't at himself. At the breakfast-table, when I'm passing things to him, he's often looking hard at nothing at all. It's plain his thoughts is far away, and not so very happy in the place where they've strayed off to, neither. Well, on this particular day, which it is along toward the middle of the present month of January, he don't get home from downtown until long after dinnertime, and when he does get in, he don't scarcely touch a morsel to eat, he just pecks at the vitals. After dinner is over and the dishes washed up, I pass through the hall on the way out, being bound for the pastime club, to consultate with Lissus Petty, touching on our own private affairs. Mr. Dallas had told me at dinner that I could have the evening off, and there was not no reason why I should linger on. But as I pass the setting-room door, I look in, and he's setting there, sort of haunched down in his chair, with his elbows resting on a little table, and his face in his hands, seemingly mighty lonesome. Something seems to come over me, and I steps in, and I says to him, I says, excuse me, Mr. Dallas, for interrupting your ponderance. But is there anything I can do for you before I goes on out? He sort of starts and looks up at me, and if ever I seize miserableness, staring forth from a person's eyes, I seize it now. He speaks to me then, and what he says hits me with a jolt. Because this is what he says. Jeff, why is it that white people are forever committing suicide on account of their private worries? But you never hear of a darkie killing himself for the same reason. I studies for a minute, and then I says, Well, Mr. Dallas, I reckon it's is your way. A white man gets his stuff in trouble, and he can't seem to see no way to get shut of it. And so he sets down, and he thinks, and he thinks, and he thinks, and after a while he shoots his stuff. A nigger man gets in trouble, and he sets down, and he thinks, and he thinks, and he thinks, and after a while he goes to sleep. He smiles the least little bit at that, but it is not no regulation smile. It's more like the haunting ghost of one. But suppose you're brooding so hard you can't sleep, he says. I ain't never seen no nigger yet, I says, but what he could sleep at the bed was soft enough. They may not be many advantages in being black the way the country is organized, I says. But this is sure one place where my color has it the best. He don't say anything back at me. So after lingering a little bit, I starts to move on out, and then another one of them inmost promptings leads me to speak again. Mr. Dallas, I says, sometimes we can lift the load of our pesterments, if only we talk about them to somebody else. Sometimes, I says, it's keeping them all corked up tight on the insides of us, which mechs the burden bear down so heavy. Was there anything else that you wished for to ask me? It seems like my words must have put a fresh notion in his head. Jeff, he says, you're right. I've got to confide in somebody, or else explode. Besides, he says, I figure that if there is one person in all the five or six million people in this town who's likely to be a real friend to me, it's you. And while my talking to you probably can't do any good, it certainly can't do any harm. Mr. Dallas, I says, I is your friend and your desperate well-wisher besides. Since I've been walking for you, you sure has used me, malty kind. I ain't never had nary Spectner grain of complaint to find with your way of treating me. Use white and I is black, I says, and sometimes seems lack to me. The two races is drifting further apart day by day. But all that ain't hindering me from having your best interests at heart. And so, sir, if you feels like giving me your confidences, I'm here to heed and to hearken and do my humble but level best for today. You have so be as I can. I believe you, he says, and I'm grateful to you. Well, Jeff, to put it plainly, I've gone and got myself tangled up in a bad mess. What ways, sir, I says, in two ways, he says, in business and in another way. I've been an ass, Jeff, a blind, witless ass. This life here was so different from any I'd ever known, so different and so fascinating that it just swept me off my feet. I've been drifting along with my eyes shut, having my fling, letting today take care of itself and with no thought of tomorrow. As I look back on it, it strikes me I always have been more or less of a drifter. Down yonder, among our own people, there always was somebody who'd step in once in a while and check me up. But up here in this big selfish, greedy town, among strangers, I've had nobody to advise me or to show me where I was making a fool of myself. And believe me, I have made a fool of myself. I guess what I need is a guardian, only I doubt whether I'd find the money eventually to pay for his services. Jeff, if I was free of these, these, well, these entanglements, I tell you right now I'd be willing to quit New York tomorrow and take the next train back home where I belong. He studies a minute, and then he continues to resume. Yes, he says, I'd head for home in the morning, if I could. It has taken a hard jolt to open my eyes, but believe me, they're opened now. The chief trouble is, though, that even with them opened, I can't see any way out of the tangle I'm in. Jeff, the big mistake I made at the start was that I tied up with the wrong outfit. I thought I was joining in with a group of typical, successful, live New Yorkers. I know now how wrong I was. There must be plenty of real people here, people who take life in moderation, people who are fair and kindly and reasonable, people who can find pleasure in simple things and who don't pretend to know all there is to know, or to be what there not. But I haven't met them. I've been too busy running with the other kind. Down in my soul, I says to myself, there's a chance for him to pull out yet, if he's beginning to see the brass work shining through the gold plating, which has so dazzled him up here to fours. Yes, sir, if he's found out all by himself, that New York City ain't exclusively and utterly composed of the Mr. H. C. Rainers's and the Mr. Hillary Bellows's and such. There certainly is hope for him still. All along, up to now, I've been saying to myself that it looks like the only future Mr. Dallas has to look forward to is his past. But now I rejoices that he's done woke up from his happy trance. But, of course, I don't let on to him that such is my feelings. I merely says to him, I says, I ain't the one to spute with you on at pints, sir. No, sir, not me. But what's the reason you can't pull out from here? If you's a mind, too. At that he lights in, and the language just pours out from him like a flood. There's a lot of rigmarole about business, and some parts of this I cannot seem to rightly get the straight of it into my head. But I'm pretty sure I get the hang of all the main points clear enough. To begin with, I learns now for the first time that him and Mr. Rainer ain't actually been selling oil downtown. They've been selling oil stocks, which as near as I can figure it out. An oil stock is the same kin to oil, that a milk ticket is to milk. Only it's like as if the man which sells you the milk tickets ain't really got no cows rounded up yet. But trust's in due time he'll be able to do so. Still, if there is folks scattered about who's willing to take the risk that the milkman will amass some cows somewhere, and that the cows won't go dry or die on him, or be grabbed by the sheriff, and thereby leave the customers with a lot of nice new unusable milk tickets on their hands. Why, the way I looks at it, there ain't no reason why they're craving for to invest should not be gratified. It seems furthermore that Mr. Rainer ain't actually been selling as many oil stocks in the general market as he has let on. Least wise that is what Mr. Dallas suspicions, even if he can't prove it. When first they went into partners together last August, Mr. Dallas tells me he put up a large jag of money for his half-interest. He was content to let Mr. Rainer manage the business and keep the run of the books and all that, seeing as how Mr. Rainer had the experience in such matters, and he didn't. Anyhow, he felt most amply satisfied with the gratifying amounts which Mr. Rainer kept handing over to him, saying it was all from the profits. But this very day there's been a showdown at the office growing out of Mr. Rainer having called on him to put up another big chunk of cash for running expenses, and whilst all the figures and all the details ain't been made manifest to Mr. Dallas yet, he's got mighty strong reasons to believe there really wasn't no profits to speak of. And that the money he's been drawing out all along was just his own money, which Mr. Rainer let him have it in order to keep him happy and contented, whilst he was being sucked in deeper and deeper. And so now Mr. Dallas says that's how it stands. If he goes on and on along the way he seems to be headed, it's only a question of time till all his money will be plum-drained from him. He tells me that he'd be willing to pull out now and take his losses and charge him up to the expenses of getting a Wall Street education. Only he says he can't. I asked him then what's the reason he can't. He says because when the papers was drawed up by Mr. Rainer, he obligated himself in such a twistified way that it seems he's bound hard and fast to stick to the bitter end. Of course he says he might start a lawsuit and throw the whole thing into the courthouse. But even so he's afraid he wouldn't have a leg left to stand on, by reason of his having tied himself up so tight in writing. And anyway, he says, before he got through with a lawsuit, most doubtless the lawyers would have all the leavings. To myself I says there is still another reason. I knows how much it would hurt Mr. Dallas pride to have all the folks down home finding out that he's made another disastrous move in business. By roundabout ways it has come to my ears that he's been writing letters back telling about how well he's doing up here in New York. And now if it should come out in the papers that he's made one more bad bust up on top of all them finance mistakes he committed before he come north, and he should have to go south again, broke and shamed at being broke. I reckons it would just about kill him. Besides which I know so well from hearing Judge Priest talking in the past, that even in medium-sized towns lawyers is plenty cost of persons to hire for an important lawsuit. And in the biggest town of all, where the lawyers naturally run bigger, they'd cost a mighty heap more. When he gets through specifying the situation, I gets another notion. I wonder, I says, sort of casual like. I wonder, Mr. Dallas, why it was that Mr. H. C. Rainer should have picked this particular moment for calling on you for a big bunch of cash. Especially when, have he to kept silence, you'd have probably gone on with him. Never suspicion in anything was wrong. Oh, I'm not so stupid but what I can figure that out, he says. He's afraid so much of my money will be spent soon in another direction, that he'll be deprived of the lion's share of what is left. He wants to strip me down close while the stripping is good. In another direction, I says, kind of musing. I wonder what that other direction can be. Can't you guess, he says? Yes, I says. I can. But I didn't think it would be seemly for me to start guessing along that line without you opened up the way first. Jeff, he says. I feel like a low down dog to be dragging in a woman's name, even indirectly. And so I guess the best thing I can do in that direction is to keep my mouth shut and take my medicine. It appears that here lately I've acquired the habit of committing myself to serious obligations at times when I'm not exactly aware of what I'm doing. At the moment I don't seem to remember how it all comes about. Then I wake up and I find I'm signed, sealed, and delivered. I may be the damnedest fool alive, but at least I'm an honourable fool. I was raised that way. Where my sense of personal honour is concerned, I'm going to stick, no matter what the costs may be. I've been fed fat on flattery. Now it's time for me to sup on sorrow a while. Do you get my drift? Yes, sir. I think I does, I says. Mr. Dallas, I says. Excuse me for presuming to keep on long is your track. But as you write down right shore, at you solemnly engaged Osef in the holy bonds of wedlock to the lady in question. I suppose I did, he says. I must have. She assumes to think so. Everybody else assumes to think so. And yet, as heaven is my judge, I never intended to lead anybody to believe that I wanted to make a marriage up here. It—it just happened, Jeff. That's all. I can see now how a lot of things have been happening, and why. But what can I do to clear myself from either one of these two tangles? I've asked myself the question a hundred times since noon today, and there's no answer. I can't lick Rainer at his own game. He's too wise. He's covered his prints too well. When I hinted at a lawsuit this afternoon, he laughed in my face and told me to go ahead and sue. And as for the other thing, well, unless I go through with it, against my will and my better judgment, it means a breach of promise suit, or I miss my guess. Besides, I still have some shreds of self-respect left. I can't deliberately try to break an engagement which, I suppose, I must have made in good faith. Supposing the lady herself was to up and bracket on her own responsibility, I says. He laughed kind of scornful. No chance, he says. No such luck for me. I walked blindfolded into every trap that was set for me, and now it's up to me to play the string out till the last penny is gone. At the present rate, that shouldn't take long. But see here, Jeff, I wonder why I sit here unburdening my woes on you. I know you would help me if you could, but what can you do? What can anybody do? Mr. Dallas, I says, you can't never tell. Sometimes the humblest heaps out the greatest. Seems lack I hear tell at once upon a time. It was the gablins of a flock of geese which saved one of these year upstate towns, Utica, or maybe Twas Rome. I don't rightly remember now, but Twas ailed at town. Mepid Twas fixin' to go for William Jenin's Bryant. Something lack at. Anyway, the geese gets the credit in the records for the savin' of it. And ain't you never read, or a mouse comes mosey and long one time, and gnaw'd a lion loose from the bindin's snares which held him? So as I says, you can't never tell. But I wonder, would you do me a lil' small favor? I wonder would you read a piece out of a Sutton book, if I was to bring it to you out of the library? And when you'd done at, if you would go on to Bade and try to compose your mind and get some needful sleep? What's the idea, he says? No mine, I says. Wait till I fetches you the book. So I goes and gets it down from the shelf where it belongs. It's the furthest one of a long row of big shiny black books, which all of them has got different names. But the name of this one is Vett to Zim. He takes a look at it when I lays it before him, and he says, Why, this is a volume of the encyclopedia. What bearing can this possibly have on what we've just been talking about? Mr. Dallas, I says, Use no doubt often seen ol' Pappy Exal, which he is the pastor of Zion Chapel, strutting round the streets at home in times gone by. Well, the brevin' Exal may look like one half of a baby elephant, runnin' loose. But let me tell you, sir, he ain't nobody's born fool. One time years some years back he got his stuff into a kind of a jam with his block. Count of some of them bein' most unhighly dissatisfied with the way he was handling the funds for to buy a new organ for the church. Now, as they could figure it out, he'd done confiscated the organ money to his own personal and private purposes. Try as they mount, they couldn't nobody in the congregation get no satisfaction out of him regarding of it. So one evening, unbeknownst to him, a investigating committee formed itself, and whilst he was settin' at the supper table, they come bustin' in on him and demanded then and bar how about it. With one voice they called on him to produce and produce fast, else they guine start yellin' for the police. With that he'd just rise up from his cheer, and he look him right in the eye, and he says to him, very calm lack. My poor, burnited brethren, in response to your questions I directs your prayerful considerations to Acts 28th and 17th, also Timothy, Fust and 5th, Blackwise, Kings 6th and Fust. Return to your homes in peace, and read the messages which is set forth in the fore-said scriptures, and return to me year on the morrow, for a father guidance. While they all dashes off for to dig up the Bibles, and see what the answer is, bright and early next mornin' they comes back to say at while them is mighty fine sound and verses, which he bad'em to read. Still they ain't nary one of them, which seems to relate in any way whatsoever to a missin' organ fund. Then he smiles sort of pitiful lack, and he reaches his fat hand down in his britch's pocket, and he hauls out the money to the last cent. The trick which he had done played on him had give him a chance to slip out and borrow, enough from a couple of white gentlemen friends of hisen, for to mech up the shortage. What he needed was time, and time was what he got. Now, Mr. Dallas, I aims to borrow a lesson from the example of old Pappy Exal. I ask you to set year and read a chapter out of his year book. It don't mech no difference to me which chapter tis you reads, just so it's a good long one. I done looked through at book the other day, and most of the chapters in it is long, and all of them is tiresome. You just read while you gets good and sleepy, and then you go on debate and refresh yourself in slumber. And in the meanwhile, I aims to steady right hard over these year pressing matters of yarn, and see if I can't see the daylight breakin' through some bars. I can tell by his looks that he ain't got no hope of success on my part, but he's so plum-wore out from worrying that he ain't got the spirit for to resist me. He says to me he won't promise to read the book, but he will promise to try to lay aside his botherments and go to bed early, which that is sufficient for me. I leaves him there, and I goes back to my room, after telephoning to Lisa's petty that something important has come up at our place which will detain me away from him for the time being. And then, when I gets to my room, I sets down and takes off my shoes. It seems like I always could think better when my feet was freed from them binding shoes. When a nigger boy is fixing to run his fastest, he's got to snatch his hat off and sail bare-headed, and I much the same way about my feet when I craves to think. So my shoes being off, I just rears back and sets in for to give the problems before me the fullest considerations. End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15 of J. Poindexter Colored by Irvin S. Cobb This lever-box recording is in the public domain. VET TO ZIM The way it looks to me here is Mr. Dallas Pulliam, one of the most free-hearted, good-willingest young white gentlemen that ever lived, about to be thrown to the ravelling wolves. He's elected to be the live meat with a two-sided race on to see which one of the contesters can pick and clean him the quickest. And so, if he's going to be saved for future references, something has got to be done and done mighty speedy, too. Else there won't be nothing left but the polished bones. I therefore splits up my thinking into two parts. First I studies a spell about the one proposition, and then I studies a spell about the other. To tell the truth, though, I don't need to have so very many concernings over the case of Mr. H. C. Rayner. I did not let on to Mr. Dallas what was passing through my mind, but at the very same instant when he turned to me for help after telling about the row down town at the oil offices with Mr. Rayner, I hit Spang on what might turn out to be the proper medicine for what ails the gentleman. It ain't so very long, setting there in my room by myself before the scheme begins to sort of routine itself out and look like something. With regards to him, I'm going mainly on the facts that he's like a lot of these here northerners, which ain't never been down south to speak of, and is therefore got curious ideas about the south in general. Long time before this, I has took note that he thinks a colored person naturally enjoys being called a damn black rabbit, or a worthless black scoundrel whilst he's waiting on white folks. Also he can't seem to get over my failing to say, YAS MASSA, and NO MASSA, when Mr. Dallas asks me a question, and I can tell he's kind of put out because I don't go round speaking of myself as dis-nigga this and dis-nigga that, and dis-nigga the other thing. In other words, I ain't living up to the character of the imaginary kind of a southern raised black man, which he's been led to expect I'd be from reading some of these here foolish writings which they get solved up here from time to time. I knows full well what his sensations is in these matters. Not only from the look on his face, but from one or two things which I has overheard him saying in times past. So now I just puts two and two together, and I says to myself that if he's entertaining them misled ideas about my race, he doubtless has also got the notion in his head that every quality white gentleman from down south, and more especially them which hails from Kentucky, totes a pistol on the flank, and is forever looking for a chance to massacrate somebody against which he's took a dispancy. I remembers now that he asked me once how many feuds there was going on in our part of the state at the present time. Rather than disappoint him, I tells him several small ones, and one large one, and another time he wants to know from me whether they ever tried anybody in earnest for shooting somebody down our way. Secretively at the time I pities his ignorance, but I ain't undertaking to wean him from his delusions, because if that's his way of thinking, it ain't beholden on me to try to educate him different. Looking back on it now, I'm mighty glad I didn't try neither, because in the arose situation I figures that his prevailing beliefs is going to fall right in with my plans. Inside of half an hour I is through with him, and ready to tackle the other matter, which is a harder one, any way you look at it. I takes my head in both my hands, and I says to myself, What kind of a lady is this here one we got to deal with? With her raisings, what does she probably like the best in the world? What does she probably hate the most in the world? What would scare her off, and what would make her mad? And what is it would probably only just egg her on? What would she shy from, and what would she jump at? Where would she be reckless, and where would she be careful? And so on and so forth. All of a sudden, BAM! a notion busts right in my face. Casting round this way and that for a starter to go by, I recalls to mind what I heard Judge Priest nor aiding years ago touching on a funny will which a rich man, in an adjoining county to ours, draw'd up on his deathbed, and how the row over it was fit out in the courts. And with that I says to myself, I says, Hallelujah to my soul, old problem. I sure does believe I's got you war the wool is short. Dog gone me if I don't. It's probably on towards eleven o'clock when I puts my shoes back on and slips in to see what Mr. Dallas is doing. He's still setting right where I left him, with the book in front of him. But his eyes seems to me is beginning to droop a little. Well, there ain't nobody living could linger two hours over that there old vet to Zim without getting all drowsied up. Mr. Dallas, I says, I thinks the daylight is starting to sift in through the cloaking clouds. I seems to see a bright streak, in fact, a couple of streaks. But even so, I has got to be left free and walk things out my own way. Is you agreeable, sir? Jeff, he says, I'm in your hands. There's no one else into whose hands I can put myself. What do you want me to do? Well, sir, I says, first I want you for to take off your things and get yourself settled in bed for the night. That's the starter. Agreed, he says. And then what? Well, next, I says, I don't want you to go downtown at all to-morrow. I want you for to stay right where you now is. In the mornin' keep away from the telephone. F. I ain't year to answer it. Jez you and Koga let it bring its hate off and don't pay it no mind. In the afternoon you may have a portent visitor answering to the entitlements of Mr. H. C. Rayner, Esquire. Before he gets here, I'll tell you what's to come off, it tweaks you to. Provided the preliminary arrangements, as conducted by me, has walked out all right. But I ain't aimin' to tell you the full plans yet. Too much has got to happen in the meantime. Tomorrow is plenty time. Just as you say, he says, I'm going to my room now. Wait, Jez, one minute, please, sir. I says, as he gets up. Mr. Dallas, you ain't ownin' no pistol, is you? What would I be doing with a pistol, he says, sort of puzzled. I never owned one in my life. I don't believe I ever shot one off in my life. Then a kind of ashamed smile comes onto his face. Why, Jez, he says, you aren't taking seriously what I said early tonight about suicides, are you? You needn't worry. I'm not thinking of shooting myself yet a while. I ain't worryin' about that, I says. I ain't figurin' on you shootin' yourself. Neither I ain't figurin' on your havin' to shoot nobody else. Nevertheless, though, I says, and to the contrary not would standin', since you ain't got no pistol, you's going to have one before you is many hours older. A great, big, shiny, fretful lookin' one. What am I to do with it after I get it, he says? Mr. Dallas, I says, please, sir, go on to bed lack you promised me. I got a headache now. Clear down to the quick. Jez from answering my own questions. I speaks this to him just like he is a little boy, and I is his nurse. And off he goes, just like a war-out, despondent, unhappy little boy. End of Chapter 15 Chapter 16 of J. Poindexter Colored by Urban Escobb This Lieberbach's recording is in the public domain. Ladylike As I looks back on it now, after the passing of two weeks or so, it seems to me I never traveled so fast and covered so much ground in all my born days, as I did on the next day following immediately along after this here night before. For a while you just naturally couldn't see me for the dust. In the first place, right after breakfast time, I glides out and I scoots up town and I puts up ten dollars for security, and thereby I borrows the loan of one of his extra spare revolvers off of a yellow-complexed person named Snake-Eye Jameson, which it is his habit to go round the colored districts, recommending himself as the coroner's friend, and acting very gunnery towards parties that he gets dissatisfied with. I don't know how many folks as he's killed in his life, but he must bury his dead where they falls, because I ain't never had none of the gravestones pointed out to me. But anyway he goes healed on both hips at all times. But I makes him unload her before he turns her over to me, because I is not taking no chances on having that thing going off accidental, and maybe crippling somebody. I totes this here large and poisonous looking chunk of dark blue hardware back to the apartment and stores it in a safe place where I can put my hand upon it on short notices. Then I waits till Mr. Dallas is in the bathroom with the water running, so as to hide the sound of my voice, and I goes to the telephone and I calls up Miss Billy's number over on Riverside Drive. Footnote. It has just dawned upon Jeff's volunteer immanuances that throughout the preceding pages of this narrative. Jeff's more or less phonetic rendering of this word was an effort on his part to deal with the galicized pronunciation of an English diminutive or a common proper name. To wit. Billy. End of note. She must have rose early so as to have her complexion laid on, so it'll get set good before she goes out for the day, because it's her which answers my call instead of the maid. I tell her it's me on the wire, and I ask her, as a special favour, can I run over to her flat as soon as it's agreeable, to speak to her on a very important matter? She says yes, so eager like it must be she's expecting I'm fetching a present from Mr. Dallas, same as I has done quite often before this. She says I can come at ten o'clock. Ten o'clock, and I'm at the door. She's in her sitting-room, waiting for me. She looks sort of disappointed when she sees I ain't brought along no flowers, nor no candy, nor no jewelry box, nor nothing with me. But she welcomes me very kindly. I don't lose no time getting going. Mr. Witt, I says, making my voice as winning as I can. Now at you and Mr. Dallas is fixin' to get married to one another. I've been wonderin' about what's goin' become of me in the shuffle. I appreciates at he lacks me first rate, but he idolizes you so deeply, at I knows he wouldn't keep on keepin' me, nor nobody else round him, without he was sure at you lacked him, too. That's what's been worryin' me. The question whether you felt disposed agreeable to me. And so, after broodin' over the matter, for goin' on it's nearly a week, I finally has tucked the liberty of comin' to speak to you about it. Yasm. Jefferson, she says, kind of indifferent, and yet not hostile. I have nothing against you. In fact, I rather like you. If your services are satisfactory to Dallas, I shall not have the slightest objection to his keeping you on as his servant. Thank ye, ma'am, I says. Herein you say at, from your own lips, suddenly tex a big load off in my mind. I strives ever to please. Sides, I got a mighty winnin' way with chillin'. I'll come in handy when it comes to happen out with the nursein', and all lack at. She sets up straight from where she's been kind of half-laying down, and some of that chain-gang jewelry of hers gives a brisk rattle. Children, she says, plenty startled. What in the world are you talking about? I answer's back like I'm expecting of course she'll understand. Why, I says, the chillin' which ensures at Mr. Dallas don't lose out none in the final cuttin' up of the estate, I says. By now she's rose bold upright on her feet. All that languid some manner is fled from her, and her voice is sharper than what I ever has heard it before. What's that, she says, quite snappy. What's that you are saying? Do you mean to tell me that Dallas has been married before? That he has a child or more than one child hidden away somewhere? Oh, gnome, I says, very soothing. Nothin' lack at. Course Mr. Dallas ain't never been married. Up to well now he's practically been heart-hole and fancy-free. Yassim, I was merely speakin' if you'll please, ma'am, excuse me. Of the chillin' which naturally will become and long as provided for under the terms of the old gentleman's will, you know. That's all I meant. Will, she says, what will? Whose will? Here, you, give me the straight of this thing. I haven't the faintest idea what it's all about. Now, I says, acting like I'm overcome with a sudden great regret. Ain't that just lack me puttin' my big foot in it, gavelin' bout somethin' which it ain't none of my affairs. Most doubtless Mr. Dallas, he's been savin' it all up as a happy surprise for you. And now, in my innocence and my ignorance, I starts blabbin' at both unbeknownst. Let me get out of here, please, ma'am, for I get's myself in any deeper and what already I is in. She comes sailing across the floor right at me. Them big-floating black eyes of hers seems to get smaller and sharper until they bores into me, the same as a pair of sharp gimblets. You stay right where you are, she says, commanding as a major's general. You don't leave this room until I get this mystery straightened out. Please, ma'am, I'd a heap brother you spoke to Mr. Dallas bout it, I says, pretending to be pleading hard. No doubt in due time he'll confide to you all bout the way the property is tied up, and bout his pause views as expressed in the will, and also bout the way the matter stands betwixt him and his twin brother, Mr. Clarence, and all the rest of it. Twin brother, she says, and by now she's been jolted so hard she's mighty near to the screeching point. Where is this twin brother? I never heard of him, never dreamed there was such a person. Say, are you crazy, or am I? Which at do settle it, I says, very lamentful. If Mr. Dallas ain't told you bout his twin brother neither, it suddenly is a sure sign to me that he was aiming to preserve everything as a precious secret from you for the time being. I specks he'll just mourn, snatch me, ball-hated for this, Mr. Witt. Please, ma'am, don't say nothing to him about my haven't give you the tip, will you? I don't want tips, she says. I want facts. And I'm going to have them here and now, and from you. If you want to get out of here with a whole skin, you'll quit your vague mumblings about wills and children and estates and twin brothers that I never heard of before. And you'll tell me in plain words the entire story, whatever it is that has been held back from me so carefully. You tell it beginning to end. Yesam, I says. Just as you wish, ma'am. I tries to make my voice sound like I'm scared half to death, which it don't call for no great amount of putting on, on my part, neither, because she has done shed all her laziness, and all her silkiness, and all her smoothness, the same as a blue racer sheds his skin in the spring of the year, and she's done bared her real head up dangerous himself before me. Just as you wish, I says. Only I do trust and pray that you'll protect me from Mr. Dallas's wrath when he finds out I done spilt everything, so premen sure lack. Forget it, she says. It strikes me I'm the one who needs protection if anybody does. Now without any more dodging or ducking, you give me the truth, understand? No original embroidery of your own either. The cold truth, all of it. And if I find out afterwards that you've been holding back a single detail from me. With that she stops short and pins me with them eyes of hers. I can't hardly keep from flinching back from before her. If she was a hornet, it'd be high time to start one of the hands off to the nearest drugstore after the soothing ointments, because somebody certainly would be due to get all stung up. Rejoiceful though I is inside of me to see how nice she's grabbed at all the hints which I has flung out to her, like fishing baits one after another. I'd be almost as glad if I was outside that room talking to her through the keyhole. But it's sure dependent on me to set easy, and to keep on play-acting, and not make no slips. Things is going well, but they has got to go still better yet, if she's to swallow down the main dose. End of Chapter 16 Chapter 17 of J. Poindexter Colored by Irvin S. Cobb This lever-box recording is in the public domain. Sable Plots So I spreads out both my hands, like as if I'm plum-cowed down and licked. And then I starts in handing out to her the yarn which I'd spent half the night before, piecing it together in my mind. It's a mighty nice kind of romancing, if I do say so, and full of plausibleness, especially that part of it which is built up on what I remember as the old judge having told me about the curious case which come up that time in one of the adjoining counties. But the rest of it, including the most fanciest touches, such as Mr. Clarence and the old maiden-lady aunt and the two sets of triplets and all, has been made up to order right out of my own head, and I ask's credit. And now, whilst I'm sitting there telling it to her, and watching her close to see how she's taking it, I'm praying to the good Lord asking him, will he please, master, forgive me for unloading such a monstrous pack of what ain't so, on an unsuspecting and worked-up lady. And at the same time I'm hoping the spirit of Mr. Dallas's dear departed father, which he was one of the nicest, quietest old gentlemen that ever breathed, won't come handing me for low-rating his memory so scandalous. I knows full well he must be turning over in the grave faster and faster every minute which passes. I can only trust he don't see fit to rise from it. Mr. Witt, I says, listen please, and you shall know all. You see, ma'am, everything in this connection dates back to the time when Mr. Dallas's paw made his dying will some six or seven years ago. Of course, as you doubtless has learned before now, he left the biggest part of the estate tied up. I don't know any such thing, she says, breaking in again and even more savage like than before. Do you mean to tell me Dallas is not the sole master of his own property? I sort of stammer's and hesitates like I'm astonished that she don't know that part of it neither. My hanging back only makes her yet more fierce to hear the rest. Wellum, I goes on to say, when finally I see she's liable to blow clean up if I delays further. The real facts of the case is that he ain't actually got no property at all, as you mount say. He only draws down one half the interest from it. He don't get nigh as much income, neither, as what folks's mouth think, from his free way of spending his money right and left. As a matter of fact, and in the strictest confidences, Mr. Witt, I says, he is most generally alas in debt to the trustees by reason of him being overdraud. But, course, I says, at part of it ain't neither year nor thar, is it? F. Mr. Dallas wants to slather his money out so fast that every dollar he spends looks to outsiders lack its ten or twelve. That's his business. Let me get back on the main track. Let's see now. I was specifying to you about the will, wasn't I? Well, it's lack this. When folks is down our way here to the terms of the will, they was a heap of them said the old gentleman's mind must have went back on him in his last sickness, for him to be laying down any such curious requirements as them was. Yesum. Some even went fother and at. Some went so fur as to say it was the streak of unsanity which runs in the poolium family, cropping out again in a fresh place. Oh, so it's insanity now, she says. The longer you talk, the more interesting things I learn. Go on. Go on. Yesum, I says. I'm going. Yesum. They was quite a host of folks's which come right out and said Mr. Dallas and Mr. Clarence. Every one or both of them would be amply justified in contesting the will on the grounds at the late lamentable, was out of his hate at the time he'd draw it up. But no, ma'am, not them to. I figures they knowed they owned dear Paul well enough to know the I.D., which he toed it in his mind. Besides which, all the members of that family is sort of techy on the subject of the little trickle of unsanity at flows in the blood, which I reckon they naturally is to be excused for that, and if one or the other of them went to the big coat house, trying to bust up the will on the claim at the old gentleman didn't rightly know what he was doing toed's the last, it'd only quicken up the talk about the craziness strain. And so, on count of the podium pride and all, they'd just left it stand like it was. And in, on top of that, Mr. Clarence he turned sort of unsatisfactory in the haid, and he strayed off and wasn't here to begin till year recently. And in, soon as Mr. Clarence was found, Mr. Dallas he come on up here, and you and him met and, in heaven's name, quit drooling and get somewhere, she says, making her words pop like one of these here whiplashes. What did the will say? Yassum, I says. Yassum, I just is reached at fight now. The will say at the estate is to be held in trust for the time being. And in, when the two sons comes of age, they is free to marry. Only they is both bound to marry somebody or other before they reaches their twenty-fifth birthday. And the one which has the most chilling to his credit at the end of five years from his wedding day, he gets the main chunk of the property whilst the other is cut down to jest. The most children, she says, only by now she's saying so savagrous that she practically is yelling it. Yassum, I says. That's it. The most chilling. You see, ma'am, they seems to run to chilling some way. The polium says does. When a polium gets married, look out for baby carriages. That's all. They don't seem to have chilling by triplets. Neither, lack some people does. They is more apt to have them by triplets. They is two complete sets of triplets on record in times gone past. An ever generation can be depended on to produce at least one set of twins. Or even more. Now, for instance, you take Mr. Dallas and Mr. Clarence, both twins. Tech they father befoam. And they maiden aunt, Miss Sarah polium, deceased it. Twins some mo. Only you never heard much about Miss Sarah in her lifetime, owing to her being kept under lock and key for spasms of a kind of wildness coming over her now and then. Then again, amongst Mr. Dallas's own brothers and sisters, Tech his two little twin sisters, not to mention the four or five singles, which come long right steady and regular. Yesam, it's been at way in the family, for as fur back as the oldest inhabitant can remember. But the generation which Mr. Dallas belongs to, it turned out sickly for the most part. And so, by the time the old gentleman come to die, all his chilling had died off on him. Excuse in Mr. Dallas and Mr. Clarence, which them two was all they was left out of a big swarm. Oh, I judges the paw note what he was about. I reckon he craved at his breed, should once more multiply freely, and replenish the earth with a whole multitude of lilpolium's's. And so he provided for a healthy competition, betwixt his two sons to see. Wait, she says. Let me see if I understand you. You say that by the terms of that old maniac's will, the bulk of his estate was tied up so to go eventually to the son who had the most children five years after marriage. Well, then, what does the remaining son, the loser, get? He gets a hundred and fifty dollars a month for life. I think that's what it come to, I says. Maybe it might be a hundred and seventy-five. I won't be sure. And he also draws down fifty dollars a month extra for each child he's got livin'. But that's all. The home place, and the tobacco business, and the money in the bank, and all else. They goes to the winner. Unless and each one, at the end of them five years, is got a equal number of chillin'. In which case the estate is divided, even Stephen betwixt them. Yes, them. Then why didn't the brothers marry as soon as they came of age, she asks me, sort of suspicious. But I was expecting that very question to come forth sooner or later, and I was prepared beforehand for it. Well, them, I says. You see, I reckon Mr. Dallas figured there wasn't no need to be in a rush. Seein' at Mr. Clarence was so kind of undependable. If the truth must be known, Mr. Clarence was downright flighty. He had spells when he'd forget his own name and go wanderin'. Yes, them. And right after he'd come of age he took a specially severe spell. And he sauntered so far away they plum-lost track of him. It wasn't twelve last July that he was located again. It seems like he'd been detained some whars out west, in a sort of a home where they keeps folks which is liable to fits of chronic uneasiness in the haid. But now suddenly his refreshed memory had come back to him, and the doctors pronounced him cured, and turned him loose again. And the latest word was that he was thinkin' about gettin' married down in Texas, or one of them other distant places, out yonder ways. So Mr. Dallas musta realized that it was up to him to stir his stumps and get his stuff married off, too, specially as he had done past his twenty-fourth birthday the month before. Well, seemed lack he couldn't find no young lady down home which was suitable to his fancies. Although some folks did say quiet lack, that they was a local prejudice springin' up on the part of parents against havin' their daughters marryin' him. But betwixt you and me, ma'am, I never took no stockin' at, cause most of the time Mr. Dallas is just as rational as what you and me is. It's only when he gets excited that he behaves a little peculiar lack. Well, anyways, Mr. Dallas, he come on up year, and he met you. So now it looks lack everything is goin' turn out all right, and Mepit will beat out Mr. Clarence after all. In which case Mr. Dallas won't have to be worryin' at the end of five years, about why he's goin' to rake up the cash to pay back the money, which he's overdrawed out of the estate, nor nothin'. So that's how come me to mention chillin' when I first come in, ma'am, and I trust you understans. And with that I smiles at her, like I'm expecting, that now, seeing she knows all the tidings, she'll be jubilated over the prospects, too. But she ain't smiling. I lay she ain't got a smile left in her entire system. She's mighty nigh choking, but it ain't no happy emotion that she's choked up with. If you was a blind man, you coulda told that much from the sounds she's making. She's saying things fast and furious. Remarks is just foaming from her. But the trouble is, she keeps on getting her statements all jumbled up together, so they don't make good sense. And yet, notwithstanding, I still can follow her thoughts. I catch the words most children. She duplicates that several times, and twins, and triplets, and insanity, and one hundred and fifty dollars a month. And all mixed in with this is loose odds and ends of language which seems to indicate she thinks somebody has been withholding something back on her, or trying to take an unfair advantage of her or something. She certainly is in a swibbit. A little more, and she'd be delirious. She would so. All of a sudden she flings herself out of the room, with her necklaces and things clashing till she sounds like a runaway milk-wagon. And she makes for the telephone in the hall, and I can hear her trying very frantic to get our number rung up. For a minute my heart swarms up in my throat. Anyhow, some of my organs swarms up there where I can taste them. I'm so afraid Mr. Dallas may forget his promise to me, and come to the phone. If he does, the whole transaction is liable to be busted up, just when I've strove so hard to fix everything nice and lovely. That's why my heart climbs up in my windpipes. But after a little bit I can breathe easy some more, because it's plain from what I overhears. That central tells her she can't get no responses from the other end of the wire. So then, after one or two more tries, she gives up trying, and she comes back into the setting-room, still spilling mumbling words. But children continues to be the one she seems to favour the most, and she says to me that she has a message to send to Mr. Dallas, which she wants me for to take it to him. Still playing my part, I says to her I truly hopes there ain't going to be nothing in the message, which will put Mr. Dallas in a bad humour with me. But she don't appear to hear my pleading voice. She's already set down over at a little writing desk in the corner. And she's got a pen in her hand, and she's writing away like a house on fire. The pen is squeaking the same as if it was in torment, and them five or six bracelets on her arm is clinking sweet music to my ear. I ain't no seventh son of a seventh gun, which they tells me they has the gift of prophecy laid upon them at birth. Nor yet I ain't no mind-reader. But even so, I says to myself, that I don't need but one guess at the true nature of what tis she's writing. She gets through quite soon. There is only just one single sheet of paper, and she folds it up and creases it hard like she's trying to mash it in two. And she jams it in an enveloper, and seals the enveloper, and shoves it into my waiting hand. And she says to me, there, now you take this note to the man you work for immediately. Gassam, I says, is there any answer to come back? Answer, she says, no, no, no, no. So I goes right out, leaving her still saying it at the top of her voice. It seems to me it's high time to go, if not higher. Besides, it's mighty hard trying to carry on a conversation with an overwrought-up lady, which she has only got one word left in stock, which that one is a little short word, like no. So I takes my foot in my hand, and I marbles thence from there fast as ever my willing legs can take me. And as I goes along on my way, speeding cross-town, bound for our quarters, I'm trying to think of a stylish word which in times gone by I has heard some of the white folks use as a pet name for a note from one loving soul to another. Pretty soon it comes to me. Billy do. I stop right still where I is at. Billy do, huh? I says to myself. Yes, sometimes Billy do. But this time, glory hallelujah, amen. Billy do not. End of Chapter 17 Chapter 18 of J. Poindexter Colored by Irvin Escob. The sleeper-box recording is in the public domain. White hopes. When you is engaged in going to and fro in the world, doing good deeds, you certainly can cover a surpassing lot of ground in a short time. It's striking ten when I knock set the lady's door. It ain't eleven yet, by the lacking of a few minutes, when I is home again, and has handed over the note to Mr. Dallas, and is watching his face whilst he reads it. He's got one of these here open faces, and I can tell easy enough exactly what thoughts goes through his mind. Mostly he's full of a great relief. That's plain to see. But mixed in with it is a faint kind of a lurking regretfulness that she should have broke loose from him, so abrupt this away. If folks has got the least crumb of vanity in them, it shows forth when a love affair is going to pieces on them. And Mr. Dallas is not no might different in this matter from the run of creation. Even so he's displayed more joy-someness than anything else when it comes to the end of what she's wrote him. He reaches out after my hand for to shake it good and hard and hearty. Jeff, he says, my hat's off to you. You're the outstanding wonder of the century. I judge it's hardly necessary for me to tell you what's in this note. I've been able, I says, to mech my own calculations, sir. I reckons if I was put to it I could guess. How did you ever succeed in doing it, he says. Mr. Dallas, I says, the main pint is at its done. Ain't that so, sir? Agreed, he says. But there are hints here. Hints is a mild word, at things I don't in the least understand. Now, for example, Mr. Dallas, I says, ask me no questions, please, sir. And I'll tell you no lies. Lion don't come natural to me. As you know, I has to strain for it. Very well, he says, have it your own way. I won't press you. The proof is in my hand that you accomplished what you set out to do. And seeing that I had no part or parcel in it, I figure it's up to me to show less curiosity and more gratitude. No mind the gratitude's part yet awhile, I says. Us has got a heap more to accomplish for the sun goes down tonight. It's only just a part of the load which has been lifted. Bear at in mind, sir. The case of Mr. H. C. Rainer is yet remaining to be tended to. You've already shown me what you can do, even though I'm left in the dark as to the exact methods you use in these big emergencies, he says. I'm still following your lead. What comes next? All through this he's been walking up and down the floor like he was drilling for the militia. So I induces him for to set down and be still, and I proceeds to specify further. I says to him, I says, Mr. Dallas, I says, these here chronic New Yorkers is funny people, some of them. Because they knows they own game, they thinks they ain't no other games worth knowing. Because they thinks the New York way of doing things must be the only suitable way. They don't concern they selves about the way an outsider mouth tackled the same proposition. To be so bright as they is in some regards, they is the most ignorant in others ever I seen. Now, cordoned to my notions, when you get some on strange ground, when you flings a novelty slam bang in their faces, they ain't got no ways and means figured out for meat in it, and they is liable to get all mummocked up and swept right off their feet. Jeff, he says, you have gifts which I never fully appreciated before. You are not only a philosopher, but a psychologist as well. Boss, I says, you does me too much honour. So far as I knows, I ain't nary one of them two things which you just called me. I only merely strives for to use the few grains of common sense which the good Lord give me. That's all it is. To be sure, I got one vantage on my side. I can look at white folks' affairs from a coloured standpoint, whereas they can only look at them from their own. If the shoe was on Totherfoot, you doubtless could help me. But in the present case it's possible I can help you. Eyes on the outside looking in, whilst you is on the inside looking out, as you mount say. So maybe I can scover things which you'd utterly overlook. The fly beholds what escapes the elephant's eye, and the miner gives counsel to the whale. Maybe I ain't getting the words routine right for to spress my meanings. But even so, I reckon you gets my drift, don't you, sir? I follow you perfectly, with an ever-increasing admiration, he says. Go ahead. This looks like our lucky day anyhow. Let's press the luck. Yes, sir, I says. Now, for instance, I says. You tech the fore-said, Mr. H. C. Rainer. When you spoke to him of lawsuits yesterday, he malty nigh laughed in your face, didn't he? Well, at shows he ain't got no dread of lawsuits. Probably he's been mixed up in them before. Most doubtless he knows the science of lawsuitin' from the startin' tape to the home stretch. And lackwise he'd have the bulge on you, when it come to makin' figures walk out lack he wanted them to. So he'd peer to be inside his rights, and you'd peer to be on the wrong side of the docket. I presume he's had abundance of experience in such matters, which you ain't. He knows his own system, and he knows you don't know it, which fortifies him yet further. All right, sir. So much for that. But, sposin' now, on the other hand, we was to lay way him, and jump out of ambushment at him with a brand new notion. I judges he ain't got no reputation to speak of. So loosin' what lil' scraps of it he might have left wouldn't keep him wake-nights worrien. Specially effin' he'd already salted away the cash which he craved. But he do own somethin' which he prizes most highly, or elsewise I misses my guess. He's got a skin which he's managed someway, by hook or crook, to keep it whole up to now. And eff right out of a clear sky he suddenly was faced with a prospect of havin' it all punctured up in mapefaux five or six places. I figures he mounts start singin' a different song from the one which at the present appears to be his favorite selection. There's just one thing more, I says. Probably it's escaped your tension, Mr. Dallas, but I's been steady in Mr. H.C. Rainer off and on. And I has took note at he's got some very curiousome I.D.'s in his haid about the kind of folks' you and me is. Didn't it never occur to you, sir, that he thinks practically all southern white gentleman is a heap more hot-hated and fiery-blooded, and what the run of them really is? Didn't it never occur to you from his talk, that he figures that most every thorough-bredded Kentuckian is prone to settle his arguments with vody-faux-caliber cartridges? Well, I's read his thoughts long them lines, even if you ain't. And I'm sure I got him placed right. That's what I'm countin' on now, sir, I says. That's why we're in lays our main dependence. Does you see what I'm aiming at, sir? Or does you don't? He ain't needing to answer. His face is beginning to light up, and his eyeballs is starting to dance in his head. So I knows the time has come for me to cease from pre-ambling and get right down to cases. Which I accordingly does so. I tells him the greatest part of what I aims to do. I tells him what all he's to do. I tells him what'll be the signal for him to bust into the picture. I tells him how he should deport his self after he's done so. I can tell him what should be done up to a certain point. But past that, as I says to him, he'll just have to let nature take its coarseness. I labours over him until I can tell he's getting his mad up. His hands begins to twitch a little, and his jaw sort of locks, and there's a kind of a reckless, spunky look stealing on to his expression. That suits me. I want him to be even more nervous than what he is now, when the performance starts. The nervouser he is, the better for our purposes. When his dander is worked up to suit, and getting more worked up and more danderish every minute, I leaves him there, and I goes out into the hall, and I rings up the oil office. One of the help answers to my call, and I tells him to please get Mr. Rainer on the line right speedy. In about a minute his voice comes to me over the wire. Hello, he says, very sharp like. Hello, who is it? Mr. Rainer, I says, this year is Jeff Poindexter, speaking for Mr. Dallas. He desires that you will please run on up here to our place soon as you can get here. He ain't seemin' to be his sef today, and so he ain't aimin' to come downtown. In fact, right now he's layin' down, but he pintedly insists on seeing you, immediately. He says it's most highly important. That's the message he tells me for to convey, sir. Well, he says, sort of grumbling. It's getting on toward my lunchtime, but I suppose I could come. Tell him I'll be there in half an hour from now. Yes, sir, I says. Thank ye, sir. Hold on, Mr. Rainer. There's just one thing else. And now I let's my voice slink down, sort of cautious-like. Mr. Rainer, I says, I done deliver Mr. Dallas's word to you. Now I wish us were to say a little something on my own count. When you gets here, please, sir, come straight on up to the apartment without be announced from downstairs, and walk right on in without knockin' or ringin' the bell. The dole be unlatched. I'll be waitin' for you in the private hall to escort you into the front room. I craves to speak with you a minute, just by ourselves. What's the big idea, he says? I can't sprain over the phone by reason that I mount be overheard, I says, but I all us has lacked you, sir, from the fussed, and maybe I mount give you a few pinters that you should ought or know beforehand. Oh, I see, he said. There's been some loose talking going on up there. And you heard something you think might interest me, eh? Fine and dandy. Well, Jeff, you're wise to line up with me. It shows you've got sense. You won't lose by it, either. I'm always willing to pay the top market price for valuable inside information. Yes, sir, I says. Thank you, sir. That's partially what I was figurin' on. I'll be hudrin' bout on the lookout for you, sir, cause it surely is malty essential. Right here I breaks off sudden, like as if I'd suddenly got scared that I might be eavesdropped on, or interrupted, or something. Well, the fruitful seed has done been planted. Almost before I has time to hang up and get up from that there telephone, it seems like to me I can feel him organising to sprout under my feet. End of Chapter 18 Chapter 19 of J-Point Dexter Colored by Irvin S. Cobb This leper box recording is in the public domain. Pistol plays. I has fully half an hour to wait, and I puts it in going over the program, as it has already been done mapped out. Just to make absolute sure nothing ain't been left out. There's one switch in the plans which I decides to make it right at the last minute. Mighty near it. This here decision is that I'll shove things along powerful brisk once we get's going good and underway. Which, naturally, this means I've got to change my Riverside Drive system. But circumstances alters cases. And what's side meet for one is cold poison for another. The way I looks at it, it all depends on the anegosity of the occasion. Footnote. The word is believed to be one of Jeff's own coinage. It is left as written. Its meaning may be doubtful. But who will deny that it is a good word? End of footnote. Now, with the lady, the best scheme seemed like to me was not to crowd the mourners as the saying is, but just to lazy along in a weaving way. Letting the specifications sink into her one by one, and thereby thus giving her time to brood over each separate point as it come forth. But with him I figures the best plan is the quick rushing plan. I figures I've got to take him short from the go-off and keep on shocking him so fast and so hard with promises of devastations that he won't have time to catch up with his thinking. And then at the proper time dash the mainest jolt of all right bang in his face. But before that proper minute comes he's got to be rightly prepared in his mind for it. He's got to be hearing mournful music and muffled drums beating in his ears. He's got to feel an icy cold breath blowing on his overhead temples. He's got to have a raging fever in his forehead. But a heavy frost congealing his feet. And most of all he's got to have a sad picture dancing before his eyes of from six to twelve of his most intimate friends getting measured for white gloves. Just let them things come to pass sort of simultaneous, and it sure going to be a case of suki bar the door with our gentleman friend. Least wise that is the way I organize it in my head whilst I'm setting in that bare little hall of ours waiting watchfully. Before a great while I hear is one of the elevators stopping at our floor. And I hear is slinky kitty cat steps coming along towards our door. So I knows that must be him, and I get back and sort of squats in the side passage leading off into the service wing. So I can come slipping out like as if I was in a hurry to meet him as he come in, but had been detained. The door opens right easy, and in slides Mr. Rainer, same as a mouse into a trap. I can almost see his nose wrinkling up like he's smelling of the cheese and craving to start nibbling at it. He looks round him and sees me, and he gives me a meaning wink. I make motions to him to be quiet, which that ain't necessary, but it helps the play along for me to be plenty warnful in my manners. And then I tiptoes on up the hall towards the setting room, leading the way for him. And he takes the hint and tiptoes along behind me. But at the setting room door I slows up and steps to one side to let him pass on in first, and that gives me a chance to spring the catch bolt on the door behind us, unbeknownst to him. I takes his hat and coat all the time, rolling my eyes round on every side, like I'm apprehentious somebody else might be breaking in on us from the back part of the apartment. And then I says to him in a kind of a significant whisper, I says, Oh Mr. Rainer, I've been truly uneasy in my mind about you. I'm malty sorry at you come. Sorry, he says, sort of startled. Why, you telephoned me yourself. Yes, I knows I did, I says, but I was only obeying orders. And anyways, at was before things begun to tech the more serious turn which they has took, I'd halted you at the front door yonder, and turned you back, if I could have, but I was delayed back in the boss's bedroom, trying to argue him out of his notion. And that's how come I didn't get there to give you the warning word. For, I says, if they'd have been time, and I'd have got the chance, both of which I had neither, I'd have catched you on the telephone and stopped you before ever you started uptown from the office. And so this move, tolling you in year, and fortifying you up, sir, is the onlyest other one I could think of, I says. And so, no matter how it may turn out, I says, I want you to carry with you the membrances, had I done the level best I could for you. Say, he says, what's all this palaver about? He's speaking quite bluffly, but even so I can tell that the uneasiness is beginning to seep into his ankles. Why shouldn't I come here? I was sent for, wasn't I? For that matter, why shouldn't I come without being sent for? I'm not worried about my position in this row. I'm safe. I says, please, uh, shh, keep your voice down, I says. Whatever else you may do, this ain't no time to be talking loud, I says. I'll swear I don't get you, he says, but he's took heed, and now his notes is low and more worried-like. I'm asked to come up here on a matter of business, as I suppose. I gather from your hints over the telephone you think you've found out something which I might be willing to give money for as an exclusive advanced tip. So far, so good. I'm always open to reason. Then I get here and you behave as mysteriously as a ghost and go shh-ing about as though somebody was dead on the premises. What's the- Oh, Mr. Rainer, I says. Don't speak of nobody being dead on these premises. It sounds too much lack-a-dreaden prediction. Mr. Rainer, I says. For the sake of all, please listen and let me say my say, whilst they's yet time. All right, he says. Go ahead. I won't interrupt again. Although I still don't see why you should take the matter so seriously. But in spite of the fact that when he says this he's grinning at me, I judges that by now the uneasiness has started crawling up his legs. It's one of them sickly-hestered grins. Well, sir, I says. All last night and through the early parts of this mornin' Mr. Dallas has been carrying on, lack he was malty-nigh distracted. From words which he lets fall, partly to me and partly when he's talkin' to hissef, I mex out at the trouble his on-count of business dealings, twixt you and him, and also at his harbour in a special pet gredge agin you, on-count of somethin' or other. For a spell he talked right smart about a compromise settlement, and at was what I wanted to tell you personally in private. At the ID of a compromise settlement was floatin' in his mind. He didn't sleep none last night, but he walked the floor steady till past daylight, and all through these mornin' hours seemed lack to me. He's been gettin' moe and moe antagonized as the time went by. From the symptoms I should've known what was brewing, but I reckon I must've been blinded. What would things be in so out of kelter round the apartment? When he bitten me for to call you up and invite your presence year right away, I still didn't spish in the true facts. But right after I'd got through telephone and down to the office, I went back to his room to say you'd be comin' shortly. And as I stepped in the dough and seen him fumblin' in that dressin'-table drawer, and seen that rampageous look which was on his face, oh, Mr. Rayner, sir, right in was when my heart upset itself insides my chest. Because I'd done seen that look on his face before now. I seen it foe years ago, the time when at electioneerin' fuss of his with the late Mr. Dave Townsend to come up. At least once I seen it on his pause-face, and I seen it moe times and once on the face of his uncle. Mr. Z. T. Poliam, which they called him Hellroarin' Zach for short. It runs in the blood and it ripens in the breedin' at look do. You don't never want to tamper with a poliam. They comes un-tamped too easy. They goes long just as peaceable and quiet as an unborn lamb up to a sudden pint. An inn at look comes over him. And the bystanders starts removing they selves to a place of safety. They calls it the deadly sign of the poliam family down our way, because they knows what it means. They'd seen it loomin' through the pistol smoke too often. And so what sort of a bluff is this you're trying to hand me, he says. But his face all of a sudden has turned to the colour of chalk, and his voice is quivering so the words comes forth from between his lips all sort of broken up. The man's looks don't match his language. Are you trying to tell me there's gunplay threatening around here? Well, that's not done any more. Use right, I says. With the poliams is, after the first shot, it ain't necessary for it to be done any more. Just wants is ample. They let's go from the hip, and they don't rarely nor never miss. I reckon it comes natural to them. Oh, Mr. Rainer, I knows what the danger is better than you possibly can. And oh, Mr. Rainer, I so skeered on your count, you having been Alice Mouty friendly to me, and you still so young, too. And I skeered on Mr. Dallas's count lack-wise, because these coat-house folks up here, they probably don't appreciate what is the custom of our locality for the settling of private misunderstandings, betwixt gentlemen. I'm most crazy in my mind, as you can see. Have only I could have got him cooled off and calmed down before you got here. I tried and I tried, but it wasn't no use. It never is no use trying with a poliam. And even now, have only we could induce him to get off and listen to reasonable arguments from you before he cuts loose? Oh, Mr. Rainer, I do hope and pray he see fit to give you a chance to explain why the difference is. But oh, I dreads the worst, because he's crouching back yonder, waiting with his trigger-finger twitching, and when he sees you. Let me out of there, he says. And though he says it kind of half-whispering, yet he says it kind of half-screeching, too. And with that he makes a break for the door behind him, aiming to bust out down the hall. But it's locked. And with that, likewise I turns over a little center-table, and it goes down on its side with a bang, which that is the ordained signal agreed on previous. And I let say yell out of me. Oh, lozzy, I yells. It's too late. Here he is now. And then Mr. Rainer ceases from pawing at the latch, and spins round and plasters himself flat against the door panels, like he was pinned there, with his arms stretched wide and his fingers clawing at work. And here, in through the curtains of the library door, comes Mr. Dallas Batsall, stepping light on the balls of his feet, with his eyes blazing, and his hair all must up, and down at his right side, it swinging loose and free. He's carrying that three-pound chunk of snake-eyed Jameson's chute-larie. I don't know whether it's the excitement or the spell of the play-acting on him, or the righteous mad which is in him. But he looks so perilous I might near scared of him my own self. And even though he ain't never toted no pistol before in his life, he's handling this here big blue borrowed smoke-wagon, like he'd cut his milk-teeth on one. And mighty glad she ain't loaded neither. Else he might start living up to the reputation I've done endowed him with. That's all. But that's plenty. As Mr. H. C. Rayner's knees begins giving way under him, he starts into pleading at the top of his voice. You could have heard him plum down in the street, I reckon. For God's sake, he begs, shoot. For God's sake, don't shoot yet. Give me a minute. Give me time to explain. I'll do anything you say, polium. We can square this thing. Only for God's sake, don't shoot. By the time he's got this much out of him, he's setting down flat against the door, with his legs stretched out straight in front of him, and his feet kind of dancing on the floor so that his heels makes little knocking sounds. He looks like he's fixing to faint away. Maybe he did faint. But if he did, I know the faintfulness didn't get no higher up than his throat. Because the last thing I heard as I went on out from there through the library was him still babbling away. Up till the time I left, Mr. Dallas hadn't spoke nary word. Just stood there wagging that there chunk of hardware in the general direction of Mr. Rainer, and licking at his lips with his tongue, sort of eager-like. Well, thus far it hadn't been necessary for him to say nothing. Mr. Rainer was doing enough talking for any number you might care to name. Up to half a dozen. Chapter 20 of J. Poindexter Colored by Irvin S. Cobb Piebald Joyce. It's maybe twenty minutes later on when Mr. Dallas calls to me to come to him and bring Koga with me. Him saying both of us is required for to witness an agreement which has been drawn up. Right then and there for the first and last time in my life that their Japanese boy wins my admirations. He don't bat a single eyelash as he follows me in where they is. He acts like all his life he'd been used to walking into a setting-room and finding two gentlemen there, one of them with a pistol and the other with a hard chill. He just sucks his breath in once or twice and starts smiling very pleasant upon one and all. I judge as he must have been brought up in a kind of a rough neighborhood over in his own country. Mr. Rainer has done rows up from the floor by this time and is sitting in a chair where he can be more comfortable. At that he ain't seeming totally comfortable. His teeth and his hands and his feet keeps on misbehaving, and he looks to me like he's been losing considerable flesh even in that short time since I left him. His complexion also remains very bad. You'd say offhand here was a gentleman fixing to be taken down with a severe spell of illness or else just getting over one and still far from well. He puts his name to a piece of writing which is spread out on the table. Mr. Dallas standing over him and sort of indicating the place to him with the nozzle of that there trusty old forty-four. He has some difficulty in getting his name set down by reason of him keeping flinching away from the gun and also on account of his fingers being so out of control. Then me and Koga likewise signs and whilst I is so doing I rejoices to note that the document is all done in Mr. Dallas's handwriting. When this has been attended to there does not seem to be no reason why Mr. Rayner should linger longer amongst us. He indicates that he craves to go but still doesn't actually go till Mr. Dallas gives him the word. For such a previously brash white man he certainly has been rendered very docile. And dumb, huh, alongside of him, guinea pigs is plumb rambunctious. I helps him on with his overcoat, which he has trouble getting into it by reason of not seeming to be able to stick his arms into the sleeves until after several tries. And such is his agitated feelings that he starts off forgetting his hat. I puts it on his head for him, him not saying a word but just staring about him kind of null and void, and now and then shivering slightly. And as he goes down the hall towards the elevator he's got one hand sort of pressed up against the wall for to support him in his way. If I'd been him I should have went right straight on home and laid down for a spell. Probably that's what he did do. I know I ain't seen hair nor hide of him since, and I ain't expecting to do so neither. Without we should run into one another by accident on the street some time. As I comes back from the front door after seeing him safely off Mr. Dallas is waiting for me in the middle of the floor with a grin on his face which it mighty near splits his face in half across the middle. He lays down the agreement paper and the artillery so he can shake hands with me with both hands. Jeff, he says, for the second time in less than hours, let me tender you my earnest congratulations and my everlasting gratitude. Thanks to you, he says, and you alone, I'm getting out of the double-barrelled hole I was in, reasonably intact. What's gone I'll gladly charge up to profit and loss and valuable experience. What's left is a whole lot more than I dared to hope it would be before you took a hand. When I look back on my feelings last night and contrast them with my feelings today, say, by Jupiter, he says, come to think of it, it's all happened between late dinner time of one day and late lunch time of the next. It doesn't seem possible. What can I do to spare myself with you for the debt I owe you? Well, sir, I says, you mount start in to please me by eating a little something. Your speaking of lunchtime minds me at you ain't been right constant at your meals lately. What you needs, I says, is to get your appetite back and stow a smidgen of warm drinks down your insides. Jeff, he says, still hanging on to my hands and pumping them so fervent it makes me feel right diffident for him to be doing so. You're the doctor and your prescription suits me. Bring on the grub. Say it with chowders. We'll celebrate, he says, over the festal hot biscuits. What hove for the fossil waffles? And with that he goes prancing about over the room dragging me along with him, like he was, say, about nine years old going on ten.