Page:The New Negro.pdf/97

Rh pianist, a cornetist, and a drummer on a little platform at the far end of the room. There is a cleared space from the foot of the stairs, where you are standing, to the platform where this orchestra is mounted, and in it a tall brown girl is swaying from side to side and rhythmically proclaiming that she has the world in a jug and the stopper in her hand. Behind a counter at your left sits a fat, bald, tea-colored Negro, and you wonder if this is Edwards—Edwards, who stands in with the police, with the political bosses, with the importers of wines and worse. A white-vested waiter hustles you to a seat and takes your order. The song’s tempo changes to a quicker; the drum and the cornet rip out a fanfare, almost drowning the piano; the girl catches up her dress and begins to dance.

Gillis’s wondering eyes had been roaming about. They stopped.

“Look, Mouse,” he whispered. “Look a-yonder!”

“Look at what?”

“Dog-gone if it ain’ de self-same gal!”

“Wha’ d’ye mean, self-same girl?”

“Over yonder, wi’ de green stockin’s. Dass de gal made me knock over dem apples fust day I come to town. ’Member? Been wishin’ I could see her ev’y sence.”

“What for?” Uggam wondered.

King Solomon grew confidential. “Ain’ but two things in dis world, Mouse, I really wants. One is to be a policeman. Been wantin’ dat ev’y sence I seen dat cullud traffic-cop dat day. Other is to git myse’f a gal lak dat one over yonder!”

“You’ll do it,” laughed Uggam, “if you live long enough.”

“Who dat wid her?”

“How’n hell do I know?”

“He cullud?”

“Don’t look like it. Why? What of it?”

“Hm—nuthin’-”

“How many coupons y’ got to-night?”

"Ten." King Solomon handed them over.

“Y’ought to ’ve slipt ’em to me under the table, but it’s all right now, long as we got this table to ourselves. Here’s y' medicine for to-morrer.”