There was one Southern black on the beach whom Banjo and his boys hated to see and always avoided. He had come to Marseilles from a North-African port, where he had been paid off on a foreign ship. When he arrived at Marseilles, like the boy of the “Don’t-light-it-afire” story, he was highly disdainful of the beach boys and would have none of them; but he allowed himself to be picked up by some insectile Corsican voyous who made their headquarters in a sewer hole of a hotel-bistro of the Ditch. When his money was gone he went to the American consulate, and it was arranged for him to be returned home by an American freighter. But when the day came for him to ship he refused to go. He had got a little money somewhere. He lived on it for a few days. After that was gone he again returned to the consulate for help, but the clerk in charge of the seamen’s department would have nothing to do with him.

Then he tried to get in with the beach boys, but they would not have him. Not merely because he had scorned their company at first, but because he was a dead thing with no spark in him of the vagabond flair for life which was the soul of the beach existence. The boys called him Lonesome Blue.

Lonesome Blue had been excited by the boys’ talk of raiding the good wine of the docks. And one fine afternoon he hiked down and bunged out a barrel on the breakwater, right under the eyes of the police. He was arrested and got prison for three months and a writ of expulsion from the country effective ten days after he was released.

If you have the hard luck to get expelled from France, the department of the Sûreté Générale does not worry itself about the manner of your going. The order is, Get out! and you yourself must find the way. Because of this, many criminals merely change their names and the scene of their activities in order to remain in the most fascinating of European countries. Some of them stay in the same place, if it is, like Marseilles, big enough to hide in, having faith in their cleverness to escape the toils of the police. Ginger, for example, having got into difficulties, had been sentenced to do a little time and then to be deported. That was long, long ago. But on coming out of jail he had destroyed the expulsion paper and was still enjoying Marseilles. That is not such a simple thing as it sounds, for the police are ever on the lookout for evaders, for whose arrest they get a premium of some ten francs per head. Ginger had been caught in many a rafle, but his little store of colloquial French and his good-natured wit had got him through the examination every time.

Poor Lonesome Blue was tongue-tied and witless. Since his first imprisonment, he had twice been in jail for disobeying the expulsion orders, and he had made souvenirs of the papers for the benefit of the police. He had just been let out again and entered the African café on seeing Banjo and the boys, who had assembled there after lunch.

“Here is ole Lonesome Blue again,” cried Banjo. “Always exposing himself when you least expect, scarifying like a haunts.”

“Why don’t you get outa it, mah boy?” said Ginger. “Seeing as youse messed up you’self in this Frenchman’s town, why don’t you ketch you a broad and get outa it? Look how you stand.”

Lonesome Blue was in a crumpled tangle of rags, his toes poking through a poor proletarian pair of Provençal pantoufles, his face scabby and wearing a perpetually soured expression, as if some implacable, invisible demon had a clutch on the back of his neck.

“Youse a sick nigger,” said Banjo. “You look in a bad way to me, lak somebody done got a passport for the boneyard.”

“You don’t have to tell me that. I know it,” replied Lonesome Blue. “I know it without you saying it. Only Gawd knows how I feel,” he finished with a belly-deep groan.

“Gawd won’t hulp you a damn sight mohn the debbil will, nigger,” retorted Banjo. “You better cut out the preaching Jesus stuff and get you a broad foh going back home. And when you git back you take you’se’f to a hospital and get some shots, for if you ain’t got the sip I ain’t nevah seen none.”

“Wha’ you wanta drink?” Ginger asked.

“Not a damn thing to drink with our gang,” said Banjo. “Ain’t none of us gwine encourage Lonesome Blue to lay around heah and die. If we got any money, let’s give it tohm. But let him keep to himself until he’s so lonely that he’ll sure get right outa this Frenchman’s town. I don’t know what youse hanging around here foh. The consul ain’t evah gwine to do anything for you again, and the police will git a hold a you every-time them ten days am finished.”

“That’s the truth,” said Goosey. “I quit my ship and have never gone to any consul since. And I don’t intend to. When the consul put you on that ship, Lonesome, it would have been better you had gone. You made a big mistake.”

“A nigger is a bohn mistake,” declared Banjo, laughing. “When Gawd made the white man, he put a little stuff in his haid for him to correct his mistakes. And so when the white man invented writing and pencil, he put an eraser on that pencil to rub out mistakes. But Gawd nevah gived the nigger no brain-stuff foh’m to correct his mistakes, and so the nigger kaint invent anything to correct his mistake.

“For when Gawd was making the first nigger, a bluebird jest fly down into the Tree of Life and started singing that the wul’ was ready and waiting foh the love a Gawd. And the tune was so temptation that Gawd lost his haid and set down the golden bowl with the nigger’s brain in it. And the serpent was right there. And he ups and et the nigger’s brain and put a mess a froth in the golden bowl. And that stuff for the nigger’s brain gived the serpent the run of the earth.⁠ ⁠…

“And when Gawd done took up his work again, he took the froth in the bowl and dumped it into the nigger’s brain and finished his job. And that’s why you find the world as it is today. The debbil ruling hell and earth, the white man always getting by and there, and the nigger always full a froth or just dumb like this heah Lonesome Blue.”

All the boys had a rollicking laugh in which they were joined by Kid Irish, who had come in while Banjo was holding forth, accompanied by a fleshy young man, a Jew, who made a living as a guide and a seller of sex post cards to tourists. The Jew had arrived from Toulon, whence he had followed the American squadron, that had just put in at Marseilles.

“But, Lawd Gawd,” said Ginger, “imagine what we niggers woulda been today if Big Massa hadn’t a made a mistake. Why, if we am as we is from a mistake, what wouldn’t we be if we had been made right from the start? We woulda had Gawd and them angels in glory and all nuts.”

The boys roared out again and Goosey said: “That story you told was raw niggerism, Banjo, and you ought to be ashamed to tell that on the race before a white person.”

“Eh-eh-ehieeee!” Malty laughed. “Can’t the race stand a joke?”

Whereupon the Jew said he knew a better one than Banjo’s and volunteered to tell it if the boys didn’t mind.

“Sure. Speak up, kid,” said Banjo. “There ain’t no ladies here objecting, except Goosey. And ef he don’t like it he can take his box outa here.”

The Jew said: “I guess you all heared about Shuffle Along, the colored show that had such a long run on Broadway. I seen it about six times. Gee! there was some swell-looking colored goils in it. I used to see real money guys waiting just to get a glimpse of them coming out of the theater. Well, what I’m going to say is about two of the goils and I’m telling it straight as I heard it.

“One night two of the show girls was walking home together, and they saw a white man lying in the gutter. They didn’t know whether he was hurt or drunk, and they woulda liked to help him, but they were goils and colored (you all understand), so they couldn’t do anything for him.

“ ‘It’s really too bad to leave him be like that,’ says one of the goils, ‘but we’ve gotta, because some white person might see us helping him and think something bad of us. Let’s go on our way, dearie.’

“And as they walked off the other goil she says: ‘Too, too bad poor white man fallen so low. Seems to belong to some dickty family, too. Did you notice his clothes? And such a handsome profile.’

“ ‘Profile!’ says the other goil. ‘It wasn’t no profile you see, honey, but his flask a liquor in his pants.’ ”

The joke went over the heads of all the boys excepting Ray and Goosey. Ray smiled and remarked that most of the stock “Negro” jokes were of Jewish origin, but Goosey scowled and cursed under his breath.

“That makes me remember,” said Ray, “I read in a colored newspaper that one of those Shuffle Along girls was fired from the company for keeping a date with a white man.”

“Served the damn wench right,” said Goosey.

“Oh, I know a good one meself,” said Kid Irish.

“I think we’ve had enough of colored jokes,” said Goosey.

“Enough you’ grandmammy!” cried Banjo. “Quit you’ bellyaching blah and get along from here. A joke is a joke⁠—”

“Yes, but white people don’t make jokes like that about themselves,” maintained Goosey. “Especially the one-hundred-percent Yankees. You fellows don’t know anything about the race movement. Ray knows better, yet he holds in with you. You don’t know why the white man put all his dirty jokes on to the race. It’s because the white man is dirty in his heart and got to have dirt. But he covers it up in his race to show himself superior and put it on to us. The Yankees used to make jokes out of the Germans. Then when the Germans got strong enough to stop that, they got it out of the Irish and Jews. When the Irish and Jews got too rich and powerful in politics, they turn to Italian and Negroes.”

“That ain’t right on the Irish, me man,” said Kid Irish. “There’s barrels o’ Irish jokes going around.”

“If the Yankee can’t afford a joke and the Negro can, then the Negro is the bigger and richer man,” said Ray.

“That’s poetical,” replied Goosey. “The weak and comic side of race life can’t further race advancement.”

“You talk just like a nigger newspaper,” said Ray.

“Niggah from you, Ray!” exclaimed Goosey, “and with white folks among us! I expected that from Banjo or Malty, but not from you.”

“Yes, nigger,” repeated Ray. “I didn’t say ‘niggah’ the way you and the crackers say it, but ‘nigger’ with the gritty ‘r’ in it to express exactly what I feel about you and all coons like you. I know you think that a coon is a Negro like Banjo and Ginger, but you’re fooling yourself. They are real and you are the coon⁠—a stage thing, a made-up thing. I said nigger newspaper because a nigger newspaper is nothing more than a nigger newspaper. Something like you, half baked, half educated, full of false ideas about Negroes, because it can’t hold its head up out of its miserable purgatory. That’s why we⁠—you⁠—the race⁠—can’t get beyond the nigger newspaper in the printed word. That’s why an intelligent man reads it only for the comic⁠—the joke that it is. You talk about niggerism. Good Lord! You’re a perfect example of niggerism. Sometimes you get me so worked up with your niggery bull, I feel like giving you a poke in your stupid yaller jaw.”

Swept by a brainstorm, Ray was gesticulating in Goosey’s face.

“Get your monkey-chasing hand out of my face, black nig⁠—man,” cried Goosey, getting hot. “Because you’re a man without a country, you have no race feeling, no race pride. You can’t go back to Haiti. You feel there’s no place for you in Africa, after you’ve hung around here, trying to get down into the guts of the life of these Senegalese. You hate America and you despise Europe. You’re just a lost sorehead. You pretend you’d like to be a vagabond like Malty and Banjo here, but you know you’re a liar and the truth is not in you.”

“Aren’t you happy you’ve got a country and a flag to go back to?” asked Ray, now quieting down.

“When it comes to myself, I’m not studying those United Snakes,” retorted Goosey.

“Holy Gees!” cried Kid Irish. “Don’t start a riot among ye, or if youse going to, wait and let me deliver meself first.”

“Sure. Go on with it, bud,” said Ginger. “Ray, how come you make Goosey get you’ goat like thataway?”

Ray laughed, puzzled himself at his little flare-up.

Kid Irish said: “There’s four people in me story, so that makes it a square joke.

“There was two Irish friends from Galway. They were very poor and they went to America to make their fortune. The oldest friend was engaged to be married. When the two partners reached New York they soon got jobs and they lived together. The oldest one became a policeman and his friend got a job as a bartender. They had an apartment in San Juan Hill in a district where there were many niggers⁠—”

“Negroes,” corrected Goosey.

“Yes, Niggerows. Excuse me,” said Kid Irish. “The policeman started in to save to send for his girl. But after a year he didn’t have enough money. So his friend offered to help him and proposed they should all three housekeep together to save expenses when the girl came. She arrived and was married to the policeman, and the three of them took a flat in the same quarter. And of course in time the bride got in the family way.

“The husband was very happy and he and his friend began saving more than ever so that after the birth they would all go back to Ireland. But the strangest thing happened, some funny freak o’ nature, for when the baby was born it was black. The husband said he didn’t want the baby and he wasn’t going to stay in New York; he was going back home and he couldn’t take the bride with him. The friend said he would go back home, too. So they bought steamship tickets to go back to Ireland and left the bride and the strange infant. But the friend was awfully sad about the whole business, and when they were on the pier, waiting to board the ship, he broke down and cried as if his heart was going to break.

“And the husband said to him: ‘Cheer up! The way you carry on they would think it was you and not me that was married to her.’

“And his friend replied: ‘I just can’t help it, seeing how it took two Irishmen to make one nigger.’ ”

The boys roared as Kid Irish stopped. Goosey liked that joke and joined in the laughter.

Banjo got up, jigging round the café, chanting the popular melody: “It takes a long, tall brownskin.”

“What about going down to the docks, fellahs?” asked Ginger. “There’s a good broad in. I know the crew.”

“I’m game for anything,” said Malty.

“Let’s give Lonesome Blue some money, between us,” said Banjo, “for I just ain’t gwine to have this rear-end facer trailing us.”

They found five francs for Lonesome Blue, and as he was limping off from the café Ray called after him:

“Wait for me. I’m going with you.”

“Whereat?” demanded Banjo. “You’re going with us.”

“No, I’m going to police headquarters or to the American consulate with Lonesome. If they expel him, why don’t they send him home to America? This jailing of a man again every ten days after he is out seems the most abominable thing to me. And a man like Lonesome. Sick and nutty and not able to help himself. How can a civilized government do that? Is there no international law for deportees?”

“I tell you, pardner, as you best friend,” said Banjo, “if I was you I’d keep away from all them gov’ment people, whether theyse French or Americans. I ain’t nevah fooled round them. What you want to go and get mixed up with them for, all on account of this dumb Alabama darky⁠—”

“I ain’t from Alabam’⁠—”

“You look like you is, all the same,” Banjo said to Lonesome Blue.

“All the same, I am going to see what I can do,” insisted Ray. “We don’t want to see him die off like a dog around here, like that old man in Joliette.”

Ray went off with Lonesome Blue.

The old man in Joliette was a half-crippled, white-head fixture who came on crutches every morning to squat in the Place de la Joliette near the fountain where the coal workers stripped to the waist to wash themselves after work.

When the black beach boys bummed food they brought him some, pieces of bread and scraps of meat. And sometimes the coal workers gave him coppers. Banjo would get food for him and give it to one of the boys to take to the old man. But Banjo always steered wide of the spot where he sat. Banjo lived entirely on his strength and was scared of contacts with any Negro that had lost the one thing a vagabond black had to live by.

The old man was a used-up British seaman. Looking down on the square from a hilly street is the British Mediterranean Mission to Seamen, which operates under the patronage of His Britannic Majesty, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other distinguished personages. Floating above it is a blue flag bearing a white angel flying to the aid of seamen. And nearly every day a cockeyed white servant of His Majesty’s mission passed by the disabled old black seaman in the square to visit the incoming ships and distribute tracts and mission cards to able-bodied sailors. One morning the old man could not come to the square, for he had died in his sleeping-hole on the breakwater.