The beach boys were at the Senegalese café. It was afternoon of a rainy day. Ray was trying to get some of the Senegalese to tell stories like the Brer Rabbit kind or the African animal fables of the West Indies. But the Senegalese were not willing to talk. Banjo had said openly that Ray was a writing black, for Banjo felt proud of that. The Senegalese got the information from Dengel and became a little suspicious of Ray, imagining, perhaps, that he would write something funny or caustic of their life that would make them appear “uncivilized” or inferior to American Negroes.

Ray himself hadn’t the habit of exhibiting his unprofitable literary talent in the workaday world that he loved to breathe in, for experience had taught him that many common people, like many uncommon people, fearing or hoping to be used in a story, are always unnatural and apt to pose in the presence of a writer. And, apart from modesty, he enjoyed life better without wearing the badge. That the badge, indeed, might be useful he was too often made aware, in a world of impressive appearances. But that was another matter. If, when alone, writing, he lived in an unconsciously happy state, he was also inexpressibly happy when he was just one of the boys cruising the docks or in a drinking revel.

Banjo had thought that the boys would take Ray’s writing as naturally as he took it and everything else. But Goosey, for one, didn’t.

“You mean to say you’d write about how these race boys live in the Ditch here and publish it?” he asked Ray. In speaking of Negro people Goosey always avoided the word “Negro” and “black” and used, instead, “race men,” “race women,” or “race.”

“Sure I would,” answered Ray. “How the black boys live is the most interesting thing in the Ditch.”

“But the crackers will use what you write against the race!”

“Let the crackers go fiddle themselves, and you, too. I think about my race as much as you. I hate to see it kicked around and spat on by the whites, because it is a good earth-loving race. I’ll fight with it if there’s a fight on, but if I am writing a story⁠—well, it’s like all of us in this place here, black and brown and white, and I telling a story for the love of it. Some of you will listen, and some won’t. If I am a real storyteller, I won’t worry about the differences in complexion of those who listen and those who don’t, I’ll just identify myself with those who are really listening and tell my story. You see, Goosey, a good story, in spite of those who tell it and those who hear it, is like good ore that you might find in any soil⁠—Europe, Asia, Africa, America. The world wants the ore and gets it by a thousand men scrambling and fighting, digging and dying for it. The world gets its story the same way.”

“That’s all right. But what do you find good in the Ditch to write about?”

“Plenty. I’m here, and mean to make a practical thing of the white proverb, ‘Let down your bucket where you are.’ ”

“You might bring up a lot of dirt.” Goosey turned up his nose in a tickling, funny, disdainful way.

“Many fine things come out of dirt⁠—steel and gold, pearls and all the rare stones that your nice women must have to be happy.”

“Why don’t you write about the race men and women who are making good in Paris?”

“I’m not a reporter for the Negro press. Besides, I can’t afford to keep up with the Negroes of Paris. And as they are society folk, they might prefer to have a society writer do them, like Monsieur Paul Morand, perhaps.”

“You don’t have to sneer at race society because you are out of it. It’s a good thing. Our society folks are setting a fine example of a high standard of living for the race.”

“I can’t see that. They say you find the best Negro society in Washington. When I was there the government clerks and schoolteachers and the wives of the few professional men formed a group and called themselves the ‘upper classes.’ They were nearly all between your complexion and near-white. The women wore rich clothes and I don’t know whether it was that or their complexions or their teaching or clerking ability that put them in the ‘upper class.’ In my home we had an upper class of Negroes, but it had big money and property and power. It wasn’t just a moving-picture imitation. Schoolteachers and clerks didn’t make any ridiculous pretenses of belonging to it.⁠ ⁠… I could write about the society of Negroes you mean if I wrote a farce.

“Gee! I remember when I was in college in America how those Negroes getting an education could make me tired talking class and class all the time. It was funny and it was sad. There was hardly one of them with the upper-class bug on the brain who didn’t have a near relative⁠—a brother or sister who was an ignorant chauffeur, butler, or maid, or a mother paying their way through college with her washtub.

“If you think it’s fine for the society Negroes to fool themselves on the cheapest of imitations, I don’t. I am fed up with class. The white world is stinking rotten and going to hell on it.”

“But since you’re a Negro, wouldn’t it be a good thing for the race if the best Negroes appreciate what you write?”

“The best Negroes are not the society Negroes. I am not writing for them, nor the poke-chop-abstaining Negroes, nor the Puritan Friends of Color, nor the Negrophobes nor the Negrophiles. I am writing for people who can stand a real story no matter where it comes from.”

“I don’t care what you do, brother,” said Goosey. “I was talking for the race and not for myself, for I am never going back to those United Snakes.”

“What’s that you call ’em?” Banjo filled the bar with a roar of rich laughter.

“You heard me.” Goosey was grinning and shaking all over at his witty turn.

“Why, Goosey, you’re all right!” cried Ray. “Where did you hear that? You didn’t invent it, did you?”

“Sure I made it up myself,” Goosey replied, proudly.

United Snakes. The simile struck Ray’s imagination, giving him a terrible vision of the stripes of Old Glory transformed into wriggling snakes and the stars poisonous heads lifted to strike at an agonized black man writhing in the midst of them.

“Now that one theah is a new exploitation in geography that will sure stand remembering,” commented Ginger.

“What about this story business?” demanded Banjo. “Ain’t noneathem cannibals gwine tell anything?”

Ray kicked his shins and whispered: “Watch out the patron doesn’t hear you. It’ll start a roughhouse and spoil everything and you know he hasn’t much time for you.”

Banjo growled a low-down defiance. “Well, I don’t care a raw damn who don’t want to tell anything, pardner. I gotta personal piece to tell without any trimmings at all and I don’t care ef you publish it in the Book of Life itself and hand it to Big Massa as a prayer.”

“You ain’t got any shame, not to mention race pride, for you don’t understand that,” said Goosey.

A discharged Senegalese sergeant told a weird tale of his shooting up a barracks in Syria, killing a white private and an adjutant and escaping on an officer’s mount into Turkey. From there he negotiated with his captain, who permitted him to return without standing trial or punishment.

A smiling scepticism greeting him blandly from all faces, he glanced round humorously, remarking: “You don’t believe me, eh? You don’t believe.” And he burst into laughter.

“I’ll tell one of the African folk tales we know at home,” said Ray.⁠ ⁠…

“Once upon a time there was a woman who lived in a pretty house in the midst of a blooming garden. It was the prettiest house and the best garden in the land. The woman was very old, unmarried, but she was stout and fresh. She had a stunted little girl in the house waiting on her. People said the girl was her grandniece. They said the grandaunt had bewitched the girl and taken her growth and youth for herself.

“The little girl’s mother had died when she was a child and left her to her grandaunt to bring up. The girl had had a tiny, tiny red mole on her throat, which her mother had tattooed on it as a charm. The mole was made of blood that came from the heart of a crocodile, and so long as it was on the girl’s throat she would be happy and young and beautiful and never want for anything. But when the girl’s mother died the grandaunt hoodooed the mole away and fixed it on her own throat.

“Before the girl’s mother died she had pledged her to be married to the son of a chief in another land. And when the son reached marrying age, the dead mother appeared to him in a dream and told him what the grandaunt had done.

“The great Witch God gave back to the spirit of the dead mother the power that she had had on earth. And she transformed the young chief into a beautiful bird of many colors, and he flew to the pretty house in the blooming garden. He flew three times around the house and pecked on the door, and, the little girl opening it, he flew into the room where the old aunt was sleeping, and pecked the red mole from her throat and flew right out.

“And when the grandaunt woke she was frightened to see herself all shriveled up, wrinkled, and gray-haired. She looked at her throat and the mole was gone. She accused the little girl of taking it. The girl said she had not touched the mole.

“The grandaunt said she would put her through the trial by water. And she took the girl down to the Dry River. She put the girl in the middle of the river bed while she stood on the bank and worked her magic.

“And the girl sang, wailing:

“ ‘Aunty I didn’t do it,
Aunty I didn’t do it,
Aunty I didn’t do it oh.⁠ ⁠…
Water, stay, oh!’

“The grandaunt replied:

“ ‘My pickney, I never say’t was you,
My pickney, I never say’t was you,
My pickney I never say’t was you oh.⁠ ⁠…
Water, come, oh!’

“The river rose to the girl’s ankles. She sang again and her aunt replied. The water rose to her knees. The singing continued. The water rose to her waist. The girl’s singing grew weaker. The grandaunt’s reply grew stronger. The water was at the girl’s breast. She sang faintly:

“ ‘Aunty I didn’t do it.⁠ ⁠…
Water, stay, oh!’

“The grandaunt replied fiercely:

“ ‘Water, come, oh!’

“Now the water was at the girl’s throat and the grandaunt shrieked aloud, writhing her shriveled body like a black serpent:

“ ‘Water, come, oh!’

“And the river roared, flooding over the girl and sweeping her away. Far down its course the grandaunt saw a crocodile slip from the bank and gobble up the girl. And the grandaunt’s bones rattled with her thin witch laughter of joy.

“ ‘She stole the crocodile’s blood and the crocodile swallowed her up.’

“But when the grandaunt returned to her home, the house and the garden had disappeared and the people called her a bad witch and drove her from the land. She went wandering far away. And one beautiful sky-blue day the old withered thing came into a new country, and suddenly she found herself before the old garden with the pretty house. And standing at the gate was her grandniece, now a beautiful black princess, with the young chief, her husband, beside her.

“Hardly could the grandaunt recognize the stunted girl in the woman before her. But the princess said: ‘Aunt, you thought I was dead, but the crocodile was my husband.’

“The old thing fell on her knees and cried: ‘Give me to the leopards, my child, for I was a bad relative to you.’

“The princess replied: ‘No, aunt, we’re flesh and blood of the same family and you will come and live in this house and garden all the rest of your days.’ ”

When Ray had finished, nearly all the Senegalese wanted to tell a native story.

“We have the same kind of stories,” said the sergeant. “We have the trial by water and fire.⁠ ⁠… Let me tell a story.”

The sergeant said:

“Leopard was a terror all over the land. He was always setting traps for the other animals and getting the best of them. And the other animals were so afraid of him, they couldn’t move about with any freedom. They called secret meetings to make plans to get rid of leopard, but they were no match for him.

“One day leopard was trotting proudly along over the country when, passing under a tree, he heard a sweet musical sound above. Leopard stopped and looked up. He scrambled up the tree and found a hole out in the main limb from which the sound was coming. He put his hand in the hole and something grabbed it.

“ ‘Who’s holding me?’ leopard cried.

“ ‘Me, spinner,’ a voice replied from the hole.

“ ‘All right, spin let me see.’

“And suddenly leopard felt himself going round and round, round and round, until he was almost out of breath when he was let go hurtling through the air, to fall yards away in a clump of bushes. There leopard lay stunned for some time. When he was revived he carefully marked the exact spot where he had fallen. Then he went off to a blacksmith and ordered six steel prongs, stout and sharp.

“Leopard returned to the place to which he had been hurled and set up the steel prongs there. He went back under the tree and waited for the animals that passed by singly. First came bear. Leopard told bear that there was sweet stuff up there in the tree, and sent him up after it. When bear’s hand got caught, leopard told him to say just what he had said. And bear was spun round and round and sent whirling through the air to drop bellyways upon the steel prongs, and was instantly killed. Leopard ran to pick up the carcass and hide it away in the bushes.

“Cow passed by and also met his doom. Dog, pig, goat, rabbit, donkey, cat, gazelle⁠—a troop of animals⁠—all went the way of bear and cow. Then monkey came strutting along. Monkey had watched the whole affair from his perch in a treetop, and monkey was known as the one animal that could outwit leopard.

“When he came up to leopard he greeted him casually and was going by. But leopard stopped him.

“ ‘Hi, monkey, there’s sweet stuff up there!’

“ ‘Where?’ monkey asked.

“ ‘Up there in the tree. Don’t you hear the music? Go on up and see. There’s a hole full of sweet stuff. I tasted it.’

“Monkey ran nimbly up the tree and, leaping from branch to branch and looking round him, he declared he could not find any hole. Impatiently leopard climbed the tree and pointed to the hole. ‘It is there!’

“Monkey turned backside way and curled up his tail against the hole. ‘I don’t see it.’

“Leopard leaped over by monkey, shoved him aside, and pointing in the hole said, ‘There it is!’

“Monkey gave leopard a hard push. Leopard’s hand went way down deep in the hole and was grabbed. Monkey ran cackling down the tree, his tail high in the air.

“ ‘Oh, my good monkey,’ leopard wailed, ‘something got me.’

“ ‘What thing?’ monkey demanded.

“ ‘Oh, I don’t know. Some terrible thing. Some evil thing.’

“ ‘What is the name of the thing?’

“ ‘I don’t know.’

“The conversation stopped and monkey frisked around the tree, striking his face with his hand in mimic mood. At last leopard spoke again:

“ ‘Oh, good monkey, out yonder in that clump of bush there are some prongs set up. Won’t you go out there and pull them up for me?’

“Monkey went and fixed the prongs more securely in their place. Leopard saw them gleaming sharply out there in the sun and he groaned.

“At last monkey ran up the tree and bawled, ‘Who’s holding me?’

“Leopard began to howl.

“ ‘Me, spinner,’ replied the voice from the hole.

“ ‘Spin let me see!’ monkey bawled.

“And leopard was whirled round and round and sent flying through the air to land on the steel prongs. Monkey uncovered the pile of dead victims and called all the other animals for a big feast. Leopard they skinned, and kept the hide as a trophy. And all the animals made monkey king over them and the land was happy again.”

“Now lemme tell you-all one story,” said Bugsy.

“One time down home in Alabam’ there was a white man’s nigger whose name was Sam. He was a house darky and he was right there on the right side a the boss and the missus. But Sam wasn’t noneatall satisfied to be the bestest darky foh the boss folks. He aimed to be the biggest darky ovah all the rest a darkies. So Sam started in to profitsy and done claimed he could throw the fust light on anything that was going to happen.

“Sam had some sort of a way-back befoh-slavery connection with thunder and lightning and he could predick when it was gwine to rain. But all the same he couldn’t put himself ovah the field niggers, ’causen there was a confidential fellah among them who was doing a wonderful business in hoodoo stuff. That other conjure man had Sam going something crazy.

“And so, to make the biggest impression on the boss folks and the plantation folks Sam started in hiding things all ovah the place and then challenge the other conjure man to find them. And when the other fellah couldn’t find the things Sam would predick where they was.

“He found the guinea pig in the baby’s cradle. He found the buck rabbit eating cheese in the pantry. The cock was missing from the hencoop and he found him scratching with the cat in the barn. Ole Mammy Joan lost her bandana and Sam found it in the buggy house under the coachman’s seat. She couldn’t noneatall sleep a nights, and he found a big rat done made a nest in her rush baid.

“Sam’s fohsightedness made him the biggest darky evah with the boss folks and the black folks, and the news about him spread all ovah the country. And one day a big boss of another plantation comed to visit the boss. And the boss bet the other a bale of cotton that his nigger Sam could find anything that he hid away.

“The other boss took up the bet and had Sam blindfolded and shut up in one a the outhouses, and he made the darkies bring out one a them great big ole-time plantation pot. And he caught a coon and put it under the pot. And then they let Sam out and the boss asks him to tell what was under the pot.

“ ‘I feel a presumonition not to predick today, boss,’ Sam said.

“ ‘But you gotta,’ the boss said. ‘I done put a bet on you and I know you can tell anything.’

“Sam shook his head and, looking at the pot, said, ‘This coon is caught today.’

“ ‘Hurrah!’ the boss cried. ‘I knowed mah nigger could tell anything.’ And he let the coon out from under the pot.

“At first Sam was kinder downhearted and scared. But soon as he saw the coon he got his head up and chested himself and started to strut off just so big and just that proud.

“And from that time the American darky started in playing coon and the white man is paying him for it.”

“And who is paying the Wesht Indian foh playing monkey-chaser?” Banjo asked.

“Hi, nigger, what you come picking me up for? I thought you said you was français!”

“That’s a white man’s story,” was Goosey’s comment.

“I don’t care a black damn whose it is. It’s a fine story,” said Ray.

“I’ll tell you a real man story, pardner,” said Banjo, “that ain’t no monkey-coon affair.”

“Shoot,” said Ray.

Banjo said: “It’s about a cracker that I runned into in Paree when I was in the Kenadian army and I was there on leave. He runned into me in a café on the Grands Boulevards. He looked mah uniform ovah, and although he seed what it was he asked me what I was, and I said, ‘Kenadian soldier.’

“He ups and asks me ef I would have a drink and I did. And then he invited me ef I didn’t feel any personal objection to take a turn round gay Paree with him. I told that cracker that I was nevah yet objectionable to a good thing. Man, he was a money cracker as sure as gold ain’t no darky’s color, and he was no emancipated Yankee but a way-back-down-home-in-Dixie peck. That baby took me into the swellest cafés in Paree and wouldn’t order nothing but the dearest drinks. And when we had drink and drunk and was one sure-enough pair a drinking fools, he said to me says he: ‘Bud, we’ll stick the whole day and night out together and if we c’n find any place in this damn city of the frogs that won’t serve you-all, we’ll wreck it together and I’ll pay the damages and give you a thousand-franc note.’ ”

“The ole bugger! He said that?” cried Goosey.

“He said nothing else, believe me.”

Banjo continued: “That young cracker was jest lousy with money. When he started to pay the first drinks he pulled out on me a wad of dollars as thick as a deck a cards. He shoved it back in his pocket as if he had done made a mistake and pulled out a pocketful a French bills. All high ones:⁠—fifty, hundred, five hundred, thousand. Well, fellahs, we went to the swellest part a Paree to eat, a place called Chaunsly. And we went into a restaurant where only dooks and lawds and high sasiety guys ate. There was a man let us in all dressed up like the Prince of Wales on parade⁠—”

“You nevah saw no Prince a Wales, nigger,” Bugsy cut in.

“Yes, I did, too. He reviewed our regiment two times. All the soldiers them was crazy about him.”

“And what does he look like?” asked Bugsy.

“Looks like⁠—the Prince of Wales⁠—why, he’s A number one⁠—a sweet potato in the skin.”

“I’ve traveled as much as you, Banjo, but you done seen a tall lot a high life that I only know in pictures,” said Malty in a tone of admiration.

Banjo carried on: “We had six mens all dressed up in mourning like white gen’men going to a ball to wait on us. Man! I ain’t nevah seen no feed spread like that ’cep’n’ when I was working on a millionare yacht. And after we ate we jumped into an atmobeel for Montmartre. And we sure did do Montmartre some:⁠—Paradese, Tabarin, Cha’noir, Mohlang Rouge. And in every one a them there was darkies with ofays. But that cracker was game. In every bar we went in he treated every darky that would have a drink on him.

“We finished up the night in one a the swellest pulluluxe joints in Paree. Man! I had everything befoh and ovah me. It was just like it had been in all them other places. They was all foh me. And that young cracker wouldn’t miss a thing⁠—”

“No!” Bugsy was pop-eyed.

“Not a thing, I tell you.”

Banjo went on: “He was one thoroughmost-going baby, and jest so nice and nacheral about it as you makem. I tell you straight that if the Mason and Dixie line and that pale skin didn’t deevide us, I wouldn’t want a better pal to travel around with. I tell you again he didn’t miss anything that was paid for and there wasn’t anybody else paying but him for everything that was had. Yessah, we-all flopped together, I ain’t telling you no lie, either, and imagine what you want to, but there wasn’t no moh than one baid, neither. And befoh he left the next morning he hand me a thousand-franc note and he asted me who I think was the greatest people in the wul’. And I answered back I think it was the French. And he said no they wasn’t, that niggers was the greatest people⁠—”

“Did he say niggers?” cried Goosey.

“I should say not. He said ‘colored people.’ ”

“Well, I wish you would all learn to say ‘colored’ and ‘Negroes’ and drop ‘darky’ and ‘niggers,’ ” said Goosey. “If we don’t respect ourselves as a race we can’t expect white people to respect us.”

“It’s all right among ourselves,” said Banjo.

“No, it isn’t. We got to drop those slavery names among ourselves, too.”

Banjo began whistling “Shake That Thing.” Abruptly he stopped and turned to Ray. “What do you say about my story for a big write-up, pardner?”

“First-rate.”

“All right, then. Go to it and use all you want.”

“I’ve got a personal-experience one, too,” said Ray, “not nearly as rich as yours, but I’ll tell it if you fellows want to hear.” They did.

Ray said: “I was in Paris myself about three or four years after Banjo’s time, I guess. And it was just the same kind of hand-to-mouth business living there as here. I used to hang around the bohemian quarter where there were many English and American joy-birds and bohemian highbrows talking art and books.

“My own inclination was for the less cosmopolitan parts of the city. But I was broke. And Americans are the most generous people in the world when they are out on a tipsy holiday. All you fellows know that and that some of them will do things for you abroad that they could dare not do at home.”

“That’s the truth said,” said Banjo. “A nigger can often bum a raise out of a pierson from Dixie because he’d be ashame’ for a nigger to think he ain’t got nothing.”

“Well,” continued Ray, “I picked up a little change among the Americans and got invited to some swell feeding. But that didn’t happen every day. Sometimes my temper turned suddenly bilious and I wouldn’t accept an invitation to eat, because I couldn’t enjoy the food with the party that was paying for it. I remember one day I forced myself against my feelings and nearly puked in a high-class eating-joint. Then sometimes I would put in a half a day boozing with a jolly gang of good fellows and expecting to be asked for a feed. And they’d all ease off at the end and ignore me. Some bohemians are like that, you know. But you all know it, too. They’ll drink up a fortune with you, but they won’t buy you a meal, and if you ask them for one they’ll turn you down as a panhandler, no good for bohemian company.

“With all a that and my kind of temperament, I knew that Paris was no business for me unless I could find a job. One of the Latin-American artists was my friend and he got me a job to pose. It wasn’t so easy to find black bodies for that in Paris. I was to pose at a school where there were many English and American students, mostly females. I had to pose in a very interesting tableau⁠—standing naked on a little platform with a stout long staff in my hand and a pretty Parisienne in the nude crouched at the base.

“The woman who owned the studio was a Nordic of Scandinavia. The artist by whom I was recommended said that she was worried about engaging me, because there were many Américaines in the class. They were the best-paying students, and, as I belonged to a savage race, she didn’t know if I could behave.

“My artist vouched for me. And so I went to work, putting myself rigidly on good behaviour. Everything went along as nice as pie. Personally I felt no temptation to prevent me from being the best-behaving person in the studio. All the students, strong and fair, came and measured me all over to get the right perspective, not hesitating to touch me when they wanted to place me in a better light or position.

“The posing went along famously. Soon the students began making polite conversation with me. They were all fierce moderns. Some of them asked if I had seen the African Negro sculptures. I said yes and that I liked them. They wanted to know what quality I liked in them. I told them that what moved me most about the African sculpture was the feeling of perfect self-mastery and quiet self-assurance that they gave. They seemed interested in what I had to say and talked a lot about primitive simplicity and color and ‘significant form’ from Cézanne to Picasso. Their naked savage was quickly getting on to civilized things.⁠ ⁠… I got extra appointments for private posing, which paid better than the school.⁠ ⁠…

“Then one beautiful day I forgot students and art and all in the middle of my pose, and was lost away back in Harlem, right there at the Sheba Palace, in a sea of forms of such warmth and color that never was seen in any Paris studio. And⁠—good night! My staff went clattering to the floor and it was refuge for me.”

“What happened?” demanded Banjo.

“Nothing.⁠ ⁠… But I decided that only the other sex was qualified for posing in the nude.”

While Ray was talking, two white beach fellows entered the café.

“Hello, there!” cried Ginger. “Which one a the bum broad youse running away from now?”

“None a them this time, me man,” replied the smaller of the two, going to shake hands with Ginger. He was a young fellow with a mischievous boyish face and a bush of black hair all tousled. He had on an old and well-frayed seaweed-green jersey and a pair of once-black pants, now burned red by the sun, eaten up in the bottom and creased a thousand ways. He was of the breed of white vagabonds that prefer the company of black men and are apt to go native in tropical lands. He had a frank, free manner of approach that made the black boys accept him without any reserve. He had chummed with Ginger the summer before on the beach, and had disappeared sometime during the winter.

“Then where was you all this time? In jail?” Ginger asked.

“You guessed it first shot,” said the white, “only it wasn’t in this damned frog hole. Was over there,” he jerked his thumb toward the boy, “in Africa⁠—Algeria.”

“In the A‑rabs country?” said Ginger. “How did you likem?”

“Not me,” the Irish fellow brought his palms up as a sign of disapproval. “Them babies over there ain’t noways like you-all. Be Christ, they ain’t got no religion and won’t ever have any, it seems to me, so long as they believe that Mohammed is the law and that Jesus ain’t born yet, and that some day he’s going to be born, if ever he is, of a white man. Oh, Lord! if I didn’t have a hell of a time in that country. I stowed away over there, thinking I’d meet up with fellows like you-all, and I found there nothing but red ones that wasn’t human at all. And then I landed in prison and the white ones was worse. They wouldn’t even give me water to drink. I was burning up all inside and I felt like I’d catch fire and blaze, for I’d been drinking hard. For two days I never had a drop of water. I cried and begged to see the chief warden, and when he did come at last and I begged him for water, he spit in my face.”

“Good God!” exclaimed Ray.

“Yes, be Christ he did!” said the Irish boy, “and he wasn’t no A‑rab, neither; he was a white man. I’ll never make another beach in any of the frogs’ country again.”

“French or English, they are all the same under this system,” said the other white. He was English. His clothes were good. He was returning from Piraeus, where he had been paid off from a Greek ship and was now being repatriated home. His home-going thoughts were not happy. He had been an out-of-work before joining the foreign ship and was probably returning to join that army. He was for the left in politics and had been in jail for extremist agitation.

“I was beaten up in the fice at Pentonville Prison,” he said. “There’s little difference anywhere under the system.”

“I could better stand up to the Englishman’s fist in me face than the Frenchman’s spit in me face,” said the Irish lad. “It’s better to taste me own blood in me mouth than another man’s spit.”