 Chapter XXI of J. Poindexter Colored by Irvin S. Cobb. The sleeper-box recording is in the public domain. HEADED HOME For a fact, that meal which he eats is more like a celebration than a regulation meal. But considering of everything, I reckon that's no more than what is to be expected. He's halfway through with his second helpings of the lamb chops when he looks up at me where I'm standing back of his chair. And he says to me, with one of them old-time little boy twinkles in his eye, like he used to have. Jeff, he says, you certainly can paint a fanciful picture when you set yourself to it. When I think of the bloodthirsty characteristics which you bestowed upon those devout and peace-loving ancestors of mine, I have to stop eating and laugh again. You must have been listening, Anne, I says. I overheard part of the tale from behind the portiers, he says. Oh, but it was great stuff, and highly convincing. Even in that crucial moment I could appreciate your deft touches. You ain't no in the half of it yet, sir, I says. Wait till you hear'stell about them fictionary kins, folks, I conferred upon you in another quarter. And how I endowed the whole parcel of them with the chronic failing of being unreliable in the Hade. I specks you'll want to use that pistol sure enough in earnest end. Not me, he says. Not me. I'll give three ringing cheers for your superior inventive qualities. If I had your power of imagination, I'd charge admission, he says. I'm glad you feels that way, sir, I says. But I sure does aim to walk wide of the deceased members of the polium family when I crosses over to the first side of the deep river of Jordan, I says. I ain't craven to get in no jam with any old resident or angels, till I's used to be and one myself. I wonder, I says, what Mr. H. C. Reynard think if he know'd at your uncle Zachary was a persistent elder of the Southern Methodist Church for going on twenty years. Never mind what he thinks now or hereafter, he says. Guess what my late partner did that counts? Anyhow, you didn't deceive him when you told him Uncle Zach's nickname. At did fit in nice, I says. Me remembering just in the nick of time, at they called the old gentleman, H. Roren Zach, by reason of his exhorting powers, when striving them brimstones, and them hot fires being so potent at the sinners could smell them and shiver. Well, sir, that's all part of my system. Stir a slight season of truthfulness into the mixture from time to time, and it mechs the batter stand up stiffer. And also don't never waste a good lie without you has to. Save them till you need some. As my motto, sir. And I subscribe to it, he says, and he chuckles some more. In fact he's chuckling right straight along till he gets up from the table. Then he rears back in a chair and sets a cigar going. He makes me take a cigar, too, which it is the first time I has ever smoked in a white gentleman's presence whilst serving him. This is a special occasion, and more like a jollification than anything else. So I starts puffing on her when my young captain insists upon it. And then, at his command, I just lit in and told him all what had happened at Mr. Witt's flat that morning and about a lot of other things. Things I'd overheard and things I'd suspicion'd, which it had not seemed fitting to tell him to him before this. But now both time and place appears suitable. Talking about one thing leads to talking about another, as it will. And presently I finds myself confiding to him the expective undertakings of the firm of Poindexter and Petty. Which that is all news out of a clear sky to him. Nothing as I'd kept this to myself as a private matter in the early stages. He says he'd sort of figured, though, I had something up my sleeves, by reason of my having seemed so interested in the moving picture business and all. And though he don't say so, I judges he figures out, too, that here lately I may be has refrained from speaking to him about my own affairs when he was so pesticated about his own, which also, more or less, is the truth of it. But now he's deeply interested and lows he wants to hear more. He states that while he's sorry on his own account that I is not going back home with him when he goes, which that will be just as soon as he can clean up things here and sell off the lease on the apartment and so forth. Still, he says, he's glad for my sake that I'm going to stay on, since I've got bright prospects ahead of me for to break into the business life of the great city. Him saying this so kindly inspires me to go on and tell him all about our plans and purposes. I says that the outlook is that me and Mrs. Petty will be ready to open up pretty soon. Seeing as I has had word just two days before from Mr. Simon's, that he's almost ready to cut loose with his announcements in the papers. I'm going on further along this line, when all of a sudden he busts in to ask me what about the old judge coming home in the springtime, from foreign off parts, and not finding me there to meet him. I've got to admit, I have been so carried away with my own pet schemes, that the thought of my obligations to judge priest is done entirely escaped out of my foolish mind. I hate to draw back from them new ambitions of mine, and yet, seems like I can't hardly bear the notion of breaking into the promises to my old boss-man after the way we'd been associated together under the same roof for going on its sixteen years. What with the one thing pulling me this here way, and the other thing pulling me that there way. All of a sudden I now gets a kind of a choked-up feeling in my mind. I don't know whether it's the wrench at my heart, or the strain on my wishbone. But it's there. So I upsend puts the proposition before the young cappin, and I ask what he thinks I should do. He studies a minute, and then he says to me, he says, Jeff, he says to me, Jeff, I don't know what I should do. And if, in view of the lack of judgment I've shown recently in certain other matters, you still regard my advice as being worth anything, you're welcome to it. You believe you've got a chance to make good up here, don't you? Well, then, I believe it's your duty to yourself, regardless of almost every other thing. I believe it's your duty to yourself, regardless of almost every other consideration, to take advantage of that chance. And I'm positive Judge Priest will feel the same way about it when he learns the situation. I believe he'll gladly release you from any obligations you may owe him. In fact, knowing him so well, I'll bank on it. With your consent I'll write him to-night a long letter, setting forth the exact conditions. How does that strike you? I tell him I is agreeable to that. But I says to him, I says, Mr. Dallas, one thing more, please, sir. In your letter tell the Judge, at when he gets back, if he finds the home-place ain't runnin' to suit him without me on hand to hep-look after his comfort. While all he's got to do is just let me know, and I'll catch the next train for home. If the business year can't run hersef a while, with Lissa's petty alone on the job by hissef, then let the whole shebang go busted. Bazzol. Listen, Mr. Dallas, I says, I got yet another ID in my aid. I craves to demonstrate one thing. They's some white folks's, which claims the run of black folks nowadays ain't got no proper sense of gratitudes, nor faithfulness neither. They claims that the new issue colored ain't lack the old timers of the race was, that they forgets favors and wrecks pledges, and sometimes turns and bites the hand which has fed and fondled them. Mebbethay is right. I ain't sputin' they ain't, in some cases. But I is sayin' they is one shiny black nigger, just rearin' to prove the contrary wise, so fur as he personally is concerned. Which I'm, I says, him. And in further proof-war of, I says, I begs you to meck me a solemn promise, year and now. I asks you please, sir, to keep your eye on the old boss man, and if he should show the unfailin' signs of feeblin' up and breakin' down, which is only to be spec'ded, seein' as he has gettin' long so in years. I don't want you to wait while he notifies me his seth at he's needin' me, cause the chances is he wouldn't do it, no ways, ifin' he feared it mount me in the sacrifice on my part, for me to come to him. I want you to send me the word on your own responsibility, and I'll get to his side just as fast as them steam-cars can tote me. He says he is glad I feels thus and so about it, and he gladly passes his word to do like I asked him, if the situation arises. With this here point settled he guides me back to tell him yet more about the prospects of poindexter and petty, which I ain't needing much prompting there, seeing as the said projects lays close to my heart and my mind, I tells him we has reached the point where we is about to close the deal for the office. In fact, I says, I has been calculating some on running up town to see Lissus about that very detail this same afternoon, providing he don't need me round the apartment to do something or other for him, whereupon he up and says an astonishing thing. I'll go along with you if you don't mind, he says. I want to have a look at this associate of yours and get his views. I'd like to do more than that, if it can be arranged. I'd like to lend my aid in helping you put this enterprise on its feet. To feel that, in one way or another, I had a friendly hand in it. I'm your eternal debtor, you know, Jeff. Go away from here, Mr. Dallas, I says, and quit your foolin'. What business has you got gettin' yo' Seth mixed in with a pack of nigger-rubbage? What would the rest of the high-toned folks down-home say, if they heared of any such goings-on, on your part? Tell me at, sir. Never mind what they'd think, or what they'd say, he says. That's my look out. Tell me the truth now, Jeff. Have you two boys got all the money you need to start you up and to keep you going until your agency begins to pay? At that I has to admit to him that the prior expenses has been right smart heavier than what us two had figured on at the start-off. That's what I rather suspect it, he says. Now, then, I've got out of my own complications in much better shape than I'd ever dreamed I could. I still have a sizable stake left. In fact I figure I've got just about a thousand dollars to spare. If you don't feel like taking a thousand dollars from me as a gift or in part payment for your services to me during the past twenty odd hours, why not take it as a loan without interest until you get on your feet, or until you've had ample opportunity to try this new venture out thoroughly? No, by Jove. I've got a better plan than that. I want to stick that thousand in as an investment along with you two boys. If I never get it back, or any part of it, I'll count it money well spent. I've made a number of other investments in my bright young life that didn't pay either. And I'll be drawing regular dividends on this one. Even though they may not be in terms of dollars and cents. Come on, let's go see this friend Petty of yours. You can't keep me out of the deal on anything short of an injunction. What is you going to do with a hard-headed white man when he gets his neck bowed that way? You is going to do just what we done. That's what you're going to do. So that's how Compoindexter and Petty is now got for their silent partner, a member of one of the oldest families in West Kentucky, and pure quality from the feet up. I has come mighty close to forgetting one other thing which happens before we leaves the place to go on up to Harlem. I is helping him on with his coat when he says, Wait a minute. I want to write out some telegrams first. I want to send one to my lawyer, Mr. Jerry Fairly, stating that the prodigal will shortly be on his way back, and one to my cousin to have the home place opened up for me, and one other. I've gotten rather behind with my correspondence lately. I'll do some letter writing tonight, but I'll wire on ahead first. You call a messenger, boy, Jeff. I trust I is not no spy, but I just can't keep from peeping over his shoulder whilst he's writing out that there third telegram, which it is pretty near long enough to be a letter itself. And I is rejoiced in my soul to note that it's being sent to the one I hoped it was. And that's Miss Henrietta Farrell. Chapter 22 of J. Pointexter Colored by Urban S. Cobb. The sleeper-box recording is in the public domain. Last words. Well I got my young cabin off this morning. I has to admit that I've begun contracting a kind of let-down feeling in my mind as the time draw it near for us to say our farewells to one another. You couldn't exactly call it homesickness, nor yet downright sorrowfulness. It was kind of a mixed sensation, with regrettitude and lonesomeness and gladsomeness all scrambled up together, and running through it, a knowledge that I'm going to miss him mighty much for a while anyhow. I certainly has grown powerful devoted to him since last summer, and I knows full well that, from his standpoint, he must have similar regards towards me. I reckon our own kind of folks can appreciate how this attachment could have sprung up at Twixtus. Even if most of these here Northerners can't. It must be that my looks more or less betrays my emotions as the parting time draws closer, because he keeps on speaking cheering utterances to me about other matters, without mentioning the nearby separation, which I appreciates the spirit behind his words as much as I does the words themselves. If I told it to him once at that depot, I suppose I must have told it to him a dozen times. To give my most respectful regards to the old boss man when next he sees him, and he keeps saying to me I must write regular and keep him posted on everything in general. I sure counten on seeing you down home next summer when I comes down on a visit, I says. I's already meckin' my plans, accordingly. Maybe, I says, you mount catch me sneakin' in even sooner and at. FSOB this year Booking Agency Business texts a notion to blow up on us. I've got a conviction you'll make good, he says. If the first venture doesn't pan out, I'll trust in you to light on your feet somewhere else. I've seen you in operation, you know. Then he goes on, speaking now a little bit wistful-like. You seem able to figure out a way to beat this New York game by playing it according to your own set of rules. But I couldn't do it. I had it proven to me, and the proof cost me money. I'm through, and ought to be glad of it. You're just starting. Well, sir, I says, I does my best. The way I looks at this town, I says, is this year way. Just as soon as you get over bein' daunted up by the size of her, the best scheme is to start in, let non-black you-knows-mope outmost everything, and what the folks is does which has been livin' year all along. That'll fetch him if anything will. Or else I misses my guess. This is the onlyest place I knows of, I says. While a shined-up counterfeit passes muster just as well as the pire gold, if not better, especially if the gold happens to be sort of dulled down and tarnished-lookin'. The very way the town is laid out helps to clarify my pint, sir, I says. She's fenced in betwixt a bluff on one side and a sound on the other, and she's sufferin' from the effects of her own geography. Just combine in your daily actions the biggest of bluffs and the most roaring of sounds, and she's liable to lie down at your feet and roll over at your command. Leasewise I says, them's my beliefs. Maybe you are right, he says. Well, Jeff, try not to let these people up here spoil you and make you fresh and impudent. I don't believe they will, though. Oh, but you is wrong, D'Arsa, I says. I can tech-spylin' as well as the next one. If they aims to come edge-and-cross the colour line in my direction, I ain't the one to hinder them. But they gives, I'll tech, in a little bit moe. If they ain't had the vantage of being raised the way you and me is, and wants for it to pamper me all up, I'm going to let them do so. Fact is, Mr. Dallas, I says. I's gettin' pampered already. Let me show you something, sir, in strictest confidences. Here's a professional callin'-card, which I had a lot of them struck off yesterday at a printin' shop over on Columbus Avenue, and I deals the top one off of the pack in my vest pocket and hands it over to him. See what it says, I says. It says Colonel J. Exeter Poindexter Esquire. How did you work that arrangement out, he says, something? Mowdy easy-lack, I says. C. O. L. is short for coloured, ain't it? So I just shortens up coloured into C. O. L. and switches it from the caboose end to the front end. And I changes my middle name to Exeter, which it has a most stylish sound to it and what Exetus had. And I tax on the Esquire at the fur endin' to meck it still moe bindin', lack the button on a rattlesnake's tail. And thar you is, sir. But you are not a Colonel, yet, he says. What's the difference, I says, so long as these year folks's don't know no better? They fattens on bein' deceived. And anyway, I says, I aims for to cultivate the military manner. Mr. Dallas, I says, don't meck no mystic bout it. I's gettin' fresh already. Which it is the customary custom year. And the chances is I'll get still fresher yet. But it'll be for New York puppets exclusively. When I meets up with one of my own kind of white folks in these parts, or when I goes back again amongst my own folks down below the line, I'll know my place and my station. And I'll respect them both. And I'll be just the same plain, regular ol' J. Poindexter colored, which you alas has known. Please, sir, tell Judge Priest at fur me, too, I says. The time comes for him to get aboard without he wants to miss his train. So we says our parting words. I reckons some of them white foreigners standing there gaping at us can't understand why it is that Mr. Dallas and him a southern-born white gentleman should throw his arm around my shoulder at the farewell moment and pat me on the back. But then, of course, that's due to the ignorance of their raisings, and probably they is not to blame so much after all. I will now draw to a close with the above accounts. Writing is a sight harder work than I thought it would be when I set in to do this authorizing. And I is not sorry to be shut up the job. Anyway, from now on, I'm a New York businessman, which I count on it paying better than writing for a living. If only I've got the right salt for sprinkling on the luck bird's tail. I think I has. Chapter 22 End of Jake Point Dexter Colored by Irvin S. Cobb