“I say,” he said, “I’ve got a friend with me tonight. He’s got some dough on him. He’s fresh and young and easy.”
“Whew!” exclaimed the proprietor.
“Yes, he’s a good thing, but push it along kin’ o’ light at first; he might get skittish.”
“Thomas, let me fall on your bosom and weep,” said a young man who, on account of his usual expression of innocent gloom, was called Sadness. “This is what I’ve been looking for for a month. My hat was getting decidedly shabby. Do you think he would stand for a touch on the first night of our acquaintance?”
“Don’t you dare? Do you want to frighten him off? Make him believe that you’ve got coin to burn and that it’s an honour to be with you.”
“But, you know, he may expect a glimpse of the gold.”
“A smart man don’t need to show nothin’. All he’s got to do is to act.”
“Oh, I’ll act; we’ll all act.”
“Be slow to take a drink from him.”
“Thomas, my boy, you’re an angel. I recognise that more and more every day, but bid me do anything else but that. That I refuse: it’s against nature;” and Sadness looked more mournful than ever.
“Trust old Sadness to do his part,” said the portly proprietor; and Thomas went back to the lamb.
“Nothin’ doin’ so early,” he said; “let’s go an’ have a drink.”
They went, and Thomas ordered.
“No, no, this is on me,” cried Joe, trembling with joy.
“Pshaw, your money’s counterfeit,” said his companion with fine generosity. “This is on me, I say. Jack, what’ll you have yourself?”
As they stood at the bar, the men began strolling up one by one. Each in his turn was introduced to Joe. They were very polite. They treated him with a pale, dignified, high-minded respect that menaced his pocketbook and possessions. The proprietor, Mr. Turner, asked him why he had never been in before. He really seemed much hurt about it, and on being told that Joe had only been in the city for a couple of weeks expressed emphatic surprise, even disbelief, and assured the rest that anyone would have taken Mr. Hamilton for an old New Yorker.
Sadness was introduced last. He bowed to Joe’s “Happy to know you, Mr. Williams.”
“Better known as Sadness,” he said, with an expression of deep gloom. “A distant relative of mine once had a great grief. I have never recovered from it.”
Joe was not quite sure how to take this; but the others laughed and he joined them, and then, to cover his own embarrassment, he did what he thought the only correct and manly thing to do—he ordered a drink.
“I don’t know as I ought to,” said Sadness.
“Oh, come on,” his companions called out, “don’t be stiff with a stranger. Make him feel at home.”
“Mr. Hamilton will believe me when I say that I have no intention of being stiff, but duty is duty. I’ve got to go down town to pay a bill, and if I get too much aboard, it wouldn’t be safe walking around with money on me.”
“Aw, shut up, Sadness,” said Thomas. “My friend Mr. Hamilton’ll feel hurt if you don’t drink with him.”
“I cert’n’y will,” was Joe’s opportune remark, and he was pleased to see that it caused the reluctant one to yield.
They took a drink. There was quite a line of them. Joe asked the bartender what he would have. The men warmed towards him. They took several more drinks with him and he was happy. Sadness put his arm about his shoulder and told him, with tears in his eyes, that he looked like a cousin of his that had died.
“Aw, shut up, Sadness!” said someone else. “Be respectable.”
Sadness turned his mournful eyes upon the speaker. “I won’t,” he replied. “Being respectable is very nice as a diversion, but it’s tedious if done steadily.” Joe did not quite take this, so he ordered another drink.
A group of young fellows came in and passed up the stairs. “Shearing another lamb?” said one of them significantly.
“Well, with that gang it will be well done.”
Thomas and Joe left the crowd after a while, and went to the upper floor, where, in a long, brilliantly lighted room, tables were set out for drinking-parties. At one end of the room was a piano, and a man sat at it listlessly strumming some popular air. The proprietor joined them pretty soon, and steered them to a table opposite the door.
“Just sit down here, Mr. Hamilton,” he said, “and you can see everybody that comes in. We have lots of nice people here on smoker nights, especially after the shows are out and the girls come in.”
Joe’s heart gave a great leap, and then settled as cold as lead. Of course, those girls wouldn’t speak to him. But his hopes rose as the proprietor went on talking to him and to no one else. Mr. Turner always made a man feel as if he were of some consequence in the world, and men a good deal older than Joe had been fooled by his manner. He talked to one in a soft, ingratiating way, giving his whole attention apparently. He tapped one confidentially on the shoulder, as who should say, “My dear boy, I have but two friends in the world, and you are both of them.”
Joe, charmed and pleased, kept his head well. There is a great deal in heredity, and his father had not been Maurice Oakley’s butler for so many years for nothing.
The Banner Club was an institution for the lower education of negro youth. It drew its
